
/£■/«,/ / 7h 






MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



Life and Chap v actep v 



Michael Crawford Kerr, 

(SPEAKER OF IDE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES,) 



lil- 1 r ]- U Ii IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DECEMBER 16, 1876, 
AND IN THE SENATE FEBRUARY 27, 1877. 






PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF CONGRESS. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1877. 



AN ACT to authorize the printing and distribution of the memorial addresses on the life 
and character of the late Michael C. Kerr, Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled, That twelve thousand copies of the memorial 
addresses on the life and character of the late Michael C. Kerr, Speaker of the 
House of Representatives, be printed, three thousand copies for the use of the 
Senate and nine thousand copies for the use of the House of Representatives ; 
and that the Secretary of the Treasury have engraved and printed the portrait of 
Mr. Kerr to accompany the same, for which the sum of five hundred dollars or so 
much thereof as may be necessary is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in 
the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. 

Approved March I, 1877. 



AUG 6 iyoe 
b. or a 



ADDRESSES 

ON THE 

Death of Michael C Kerr. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE !!< -I'M 



Tuesday, December 5, 1876. 

Mr. Andrew H. Hamilton, by unanimous consent, submitted the 
following resolution, viz : 

Resolved, That the special order for Saturday, December, 16, at one 
o'clock, shall be the presentation of suitable resolutions on the death 
of Hon. M. C. Kerr, Speaker of this House during its last session, 
and the expression by the members of the esteem in which he was 
held for his unblemished character, for his eminent services as a 
Representative, and for his ability and impartiality as a presiding 
officer. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 



Saturday, December 16, 1876. 
The hour of one o'clock p. m. having arrived, the House, under its 
previous order, proceeded to pay the last honors to the memory of 
Hon. Michael C. Kerr, late a Representative from the State of 
Indiana, and Speaker of this House. 

OBSEQUIES OF HON. MICHAEL C. KERR. 

Mr. Hamilton, of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose 
of submitting resolutions of respect to the memory of our late 



4 ADDRESS OF MR. HAMILTON ON THE 

Speaker; and I ask that the resolution introduced by me, making 
these memorial services a special order for to-day at one o'clock, be 
read. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the special order for Saturday, December 16, at one 
o'clock, shall be the presentation of suitable resolutions on the death 
of Hon. M. C. Kerr, Speaker of this House during its last session, 
and the expression by the members of the esteem in which he was 
held for his unblemished character, for his eminent services as a 
Representative, and for his ability and impartiality as a presiding 
officer. 



^DDF^ESS OF yVlR. ^AMILTON, OF JNDIANA. 

Mr. Speaker : Michael C. Kerr was born at Titusville, in the 
State of Pennsylvania, March 15, 1827. When he was twenty-five 
years of age he entered upon the practice of the law in the city of 
New Albany, Indiana. At twenty-seven, he was city attorney ; at 
twenty-eight, prosecuting attorney of Floyd County; at twenty-nine, 
took his seat in the legislature of Indiana ; at thirty-five, was the 
official reporter of the supreme court of that State and edited five 
volumes of its reports; at thirty-seven, was elected to the Thirty- 
ninth Congress of the United States, and was afterward elected to 
the Fortieth, Forty-first, Forty-second, and Forty-fourth. He died 
the Speaker of the House, at seven o'clock and thirty minutes p. m., 
on the 19th day of August, A. D. 1876, at Rockbridge Alum Springs, 
in the State of Virginia, at the age of forty-nine years, five months, 
and four days. 

Such is the brief record of one who, for twenty-two years — nearly 
a quarter of a century — had been selected by the people among 
whom he lived to hold important trusts. 

At each step of his career he firmly established his footing, so that 



it was easy to ascend. Scarcely had he been ready to surrender an 
office, when one more prominent was tendered him. So well did he 
discharge the duties assigned him, so exemplary was his conduct, 
that the people of his district delighted to honor him. His home 
was in a portion of the State which was early settled, on the Ohio 
River, the highway of travel. He was surrounded by able men, yet 
he was selected to be the recipient of such honors as the voters of 
his own and adjoining counties could bestow. When he was the 
democratic candidate for Congress in 1872 for the State at large, he 
was defeated by only 162 votes, while the other democratic candi- 
dates on the State ticket, with the single exception of Thomas A. 
Hendricks for governor, were defeated by majorities ranging from 
533 to 2,568; and in the November election following, General 
Grant's majority was 22,507. Yet he was not one who could have 
been called a popular man. He was not all things to all men. 
With a will of iron, he never could have been bent from his convic- 
tions of duty. Place and power would have been too dearly bought 
by even the slightest concession. He obtained the offices which he 
filled by the confidence which was felt in his integrity, so convinced 
was every one that under no circumstances would he ever sacrifice 
his personal purity, the people's interests, or his country's honor. In 
his campaigns he was earnest, but not impassioned. He appealed to 
the judgment, not to the prejudices, of his audience. A candidate 
for the Forty-fourth Congress, differing from the greater portion of 
his constituents, who were members of the same party, on the finan- 
cial question, he would not compromise. He made his contest 
squarely on that issue. Though he did not carry his district by its 
fidl democratic strength, yet he was elected by a majority of over 
1,500; many of those who opposed his financial views were so firmly 
convinced of his integrity and so proud of his record, that they cast 
their votes lor him; and yet he was opposed by a man who had 
achieved a State reputation, and who, up to that time, had stood 



6 ADDRESS OF MR. HAMILTON ON THE 

among the foremost men of the democratic party in that portion of 
Indiana. 

Mr. Kerr took his seat for the first time in the Thirty-ninth Con- 
gress. He early obtained a prominent position, and not only main- 
tained it. but also advanced his reputation year by year. 

During the sessions when he stood upon the floor of the House 
he was with the minority. It was during stormy periods; but even 
in themidst of debate he commanded the respect of all, and yet he 
was at times severe and denunciatory. 

As the presiding officer, he was calm, dignified, and impartial. 
What he might have been as the Speaker, had he been in perfect 
health, can be easily determined by what he was when worn to a 
shadow, with disease preying upon his vitals, and torture rending his 
frame. With the exception of a lack of breath and a countenance 
which told of suffering, there was nothing in his manner, as a pre- 
siding officer, of the invalid whose life hung upon a thread; there 
was none of the irritability which usually accompanies the disease 
that is incurable. 

Mr. Kerr was a partisan ; I mean by a " partisan " one who does 
not swerve from the views and principles which are promulgated by 
those connected with him in a political organization, but on the con- 
trary, with unflinching tenacity, clings to them and advocates them ; 
carries out those measures which advances them, and endeavors with 
boldness and energy to place his party in power — yet, as "The 
Speaker," he knew neither friend nor foe, he recognized only the 
individual rights of the members and parliamentary law. The moral 
power, unstained honor, true faith in pure motives, unswerving devo- 
tion to principle, unsullied patriotism is, as the combination of genius 
and talent or genius educated in the mental organization, an inhe- 
rent characteristic, educated and increased by the man himself, which 
places him upon an elevation from which it were not possible for him 
to descend. This power Mr. Kerr possessed. 



During all the years of his public service, not a breath of suspicion 
was ever directed toward him until a baseless charge was brought to 
offset charges against other public men — a charge so unfounded and 
unsupported that even his political opponents blushed for their con- 
nection with it. His intense energy sustained him during that most 
extraordinary trial. When the accusation came, he asked no post- 
ponement on account of ill-health. Raising himself from what his 
friends knew to be his dying-bed, his strong will overcame his illness, 
put temporary life and vigor into his emaciated and tottering frame, 
and bore him calm and dignified before the committee and his accuser, 
where he demonstrated the utter falsity of the charge. 

When the negative man dies there is no muffled bell tolling in the 
heart of the people. He is like the worm ; a part may be cut off and 
crushed, but each of the hundred other parts has a similar life, which 
still continues. But when' the man of positive character — of high 
sense of public duty and a will to carry out at all hazards his con- 
victions — is taken away, there is a feeling that a vacancy has been 
created which cannot be filled, not that a piece of the long body of 
humanity has been cut off and that the rest can crawl along as well 
without it. Michael C. Kerr could have led a forlorn hope. He 
could have breasted popular opinions and gone to the stake a martyr 
to his principles. 

At any time the death of a pure man, an upright statesman, occa- 
sions a blank which it is difficult to fill. But in an age like this, 
when a deviation from public probity is looked upon as a slight affair, 
when public men who have soiled their hands oftentimes, instead of 
being denounced have been indorsed by the people, then the loss of 
a man who has no defilement on his person, nor a stain upon his gar- 
ments, is irreparable. Years have passed, and years to come may sleep 
among the bygones, and the student not be able to find a more per- 
fect parallel to Andrew Marvel, in his firmness and decision of char- 
acter and in his pure and lofty patriotism, than is afforded by the life 



S ADDRESS OF MR. HAMILTON' ON THE 

of Michael C. Kerr. Immaculate he stands out, a tall palm-tree in 
the moral desert of the age, gladdening the heart of humanity, a cheer- 
ing evidence that the wells of political probity and public honesty 
have not all dried up. 

The distinguished member of this House from Massachusetts, in 
the Senate Chamber, arraigned the public men of the day for their 
dishonesty and corruption. How gratifying it must be to an Ameri- 
can to turn from the picture he draws to the name [nomen claruni) of 
Michael C. Kerr on the monument in a cemetery of the State 
which has reason to be proud of the example it has given to the 
country of unimpeachable integrity. 

The resistance Mr. Kerr made to the advance of the disease which 
was to terminate his existence ; the determination to occupy his place 
in this House in spite of the ravages m=>de upon his system ; the 
manner in which he endured physical and mental torture, was mar- 
velous. He demonstrated that he had learned — 

Life's hardest lesson — without groan 
To suffer and endure. 

The final summons came. The response was not merely the calm 
"adsum " but also the " semper paratus" of the man who felt that his 
life had been unspotted, and who had used well the talent which had 
been intrusted to him. 

As— 

The days lay down their brightness, 
And bathing in splendor die, 

so Michael C. Kerr went to his rest, surrounded by a halo of moral 
beauty, followed to the tomb by the regrets of the entire nation, and 
left behind a name synonymous with public probity and public honor. 

He has done the work of a true man ; 

Crown him, honor him, love him ; 
Weep over him tears of woman ; 

Stoop manliest brows above him ! 



^ddress of /Ar. J{elley, of f> ennsylvania. 

Mr. Speaker : The sudden death of a strong man in the vigor of 
early manhood fills his companions with awe and constrains the 
strongest and most youthful of them to pause and consider how frail 
may be his tenure of life. We all remember the thrill that ran 
through the House when, near the close of the last session of Con- 
gress, the local telegraph brought us notice of the instant death of 
that magnificent specimen of manhood, Hon. E. Y. Parsons, of Ken- 
tucky, whose manly beauty had commanded our admiration, and 
whose conversation, pregnant with intelligence, wit, and humor, had 
charmed some of us but a little hour before. 

The death of Hon. Michael C. Kerr was not sudden. We had all 
seen from day to day, or week to week, the fatal inroads disease was 
making on his always slender frame. In his case we saw how high 
purposes and overmastering will could hold death at bay; for common 
consent denied him three months of life from the day on which he 
entered upon his duties as Speaker of the House; yet it was not 
until after the close of an unusually long session that in the presence 
of his wife and only child, a son in whom he hoped his virtues would 
live, he welcomed death as release from pain, and with serene cour- 
age passed to the unknown. 

I first met Mr. Kerr when he entered the Thirty-ninth Congress, 
but years elapsed before I came to know him intimately. Indeed, 
until we were associated on the Committee of Ways and Means of 
the Forty-second Congress I had felt that we should never know each 
other well. Starting from almost any given stand-point in the investi- 
gation of public questions, such were our instincts or had been our 
early training, that we traveled in diverging lines and rested in op- 
posite conclusions. 



10 ADDRESS OF MR. KELLEY ON THE 

He seemed to me to have little special fitness for public life. He not 
only never attempted the arts of the demagogue, but loathed them in 
his inmost soul. Social life, other than the charmed circle which graced 
his home, seemed to offer him no attraction. His conversation was 
grave, and rarely, if ever, sparkled with wit or was softened by a 
stroke of humor. His tendencies were evidently not toward the ex- 
citement of public life. He loved his profession — the law — the labors 
of which were congenial to his tastes, and when he sought honor at the 
hands of his fellow-citizens it was in the line of that profession; thus, 
though admitted to practice in 1852, he was elected city attorney by 
the people of New Albany in 1854; in the next year the citizens of 
Floyd County promoted him to the office of prosecuting attorney, and 
in 1862 the legislature elected him reporter of the supreme court of 
Indiana, which office he filled till elected to the Thirty-ninth Con- 
gress. The fidelity and ability with which he performed the duties 
of this office is attested by the esteem in which the five volumes of 
reports that bear his name are held by the profession. During his 
service on the Committee of Ways and Means the impression I 
express was confirmed by the fact that he was ever ready, though his 
strength was even then much impaired by disease, to give special study 
to any question referred to the committee which involved legal intri- 
cacies or nice judicial consideration. I can recall several such cases, 
and remember that in reporting his judgment in each of them it was 
the jurist and not the politician who spoke. I am sure that all our 
colleagues on that committee will confirm my judgment on this point. 

Yet Mr. Kerr wa"s a man of positive political convictions and had 
the courage of his opinions, which, on the cardinal questions that 
divided parties during his service in Congress, were those of his 
party, and his fearless expressions of them won for him its confi- 
dence in a remarkable degree. So strong was his will and so abso- 
lute were his convictions, that it was impossible for him to trim or 
play the time-server. In none of his numerous speeches duriny the 



time Congress was engaged in the work of reconstruction can a sen- 
tence of double or doubtful meaning be found. 

On the question of the best method of raising revenue for the sup- 
port of the Government and the extinguishment of the debt, he and 
I were in constant antagonism. He regarded duties imposed either 
incidentally or directly for the protection of capital ventured in manu- 
factures in the hope of developing our natural resources and estab- 
lishing our commercial independence, as a violation of the Constitu- 
tion and an injury to the consumer. He would, could he have found 
it practicable, have abolished all custom-houses, and laboring to that 
end he steadily strove to reduce impost duties to the lowest possible 
rate and to limit their application to the smallest number of articles. 
Here, again, the integrity of his intellect and purposes was shown. 
He left it to others to prate of revenue reform while really intending 
the establishment of free trade and the overthrow of the protective 
system. He had faith in the intelligence of the people, and believed 
that he who discussed such questions was bound to state his faith 
with perfect clearness, and to submit to those he would influence the 
arguments on which it rested. 

He was a whole-hearted and courageous man, and none could know 
him well, as I learned to do in the committee-room and during the 
last session of Congress, when his sufferings frequently attracted me 
to his side, without finding under his rigid exterior a gentleness of 
character and a depth of affection that were most winning. 

If truth is made apparent by the vigorous conflict of opinion, and 
if, as I believe, the grandest treasures of a republic are its men of 
manly purpose and dauntless will, our country suffered greatly in the 
early death of Mr. Kerr ; for, while life and strength permitted, he 
was ever ready to discuss with absolute integrity of purpose and 
expression every question that concerned the welfare of the Re- 
public. 

It must have been the strength of his convictions on political 



12 ADDRESS OF MR. HAYMOXD ON THE 

questions that tempted him to yield to the persuasive voice of friends 
and enter the arena of national politics, and I have often thought 
had it not been for the exciting labors into which he was thus drawn, 
his life would probably have been prolonged and his name filled an 
exalted place in the judicial records of his adopted State and the 
nation at large. 



^ddf^ess of Mf^. Raymond, of Indiana. 

Mr. Speaker : We have assembled on an occasion of unusual so- 
lemnity. The late distinguished Speaker of the House of Represent- 
atives, Hon. Michael C. Kerr, is no more. He was stricken by 
the hand of death soon after the close of the first session of this Con- 
gress. He has passed away; his mission on earth has ceased and 
his labors have been finished. We shall see his face and hear his 
voice no more, but his good name, his well-earned fame, and his no- 
ble qualities still live in the memory of all who knew him, and will 
not be soon forgotten. Universal sympathy was extended to him 
during his protracted sufferings from mortal disease, and the whole 
country beheld with surprise and admiration the pertinacity and brav- 
ery exhibited by him in the discharge of the responsible and laborious 
duties of his office. A nation, without respect to party, mourns his 
untimely departure, and it becomes appropriately the duty of those 
who were his associates on this floor to render a heartfelt and formal 
tribute of respect to his memory. 

It is a charitable sentiment, at least, that no one should speak ill 
of the dead ; that their errors, faults, and frailties, whatever they may 
have been, should be covered by the mantle of oblivion; but it does 
not follow from this that their virtues, their endearing qualities, their 
noble deeds, and valuable services to the state should remain unre- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 13 

corded and suffered to pass without appropriate notice and action on 
the part of their associates and survivors. These should be appro- 
priately recorded and transmitted, that the light which once shone 
and illumined the pathway of thousands should not return to dark- 
ness. It is a duty devolving upon the living to perpetuate the mem- 
ory of those who were good or great, who achieved distinction in 
some department or sphere of life, who filled high positions with 
credit to themselves and benefit to their country, and who by their 
talents or genius have rendered valuable service to mankind. The 
character and personal history of such belong to the people, and 
should descend as a legacy to posterity. What is a country without 
a biography of its distinguished men and its public benefactors? 
What a blank would there have been in the history of Greece and 
Rome if there had been no biographical sketches or special mention 
made of their philosophers, poets, orators, statesmen, and heroes ! It 
would have been a shadow without substance ; a skeleton divested 
of those vital parts essential to form — life and beauty. The charac- 
ter of a nation and the criterion of its civilization may be judged by 
the intelligence, honesty, and purity of those who are appointed its 
rulers. It is our boast to rejoice in the eminent qualities of the found- 
ers of this Republic. While the spirit of freedom pervades the minds 
of the American people they cannot cease to hold in veneration the 
illustrious champions of independence. The names of Washington, 
Adams, Franklin, Jay and Hamilton, Marshall and Jefferson, will be 
handed down from generation to generation and sounded with praise 
while free institutions exist upon the earth. Those names will be 
transmitted as synonyms of great ideas— liberty and self-government. 
The duties and responsibilities of men never cease. Each genera- 
tion at every stage of progress will have new perplexities to encoun- 
ter, new labors to perform, and new difficulties to surmount. " Peace 
hath its victories no less renowned than war," and to the statesman 
of the present time there is open a wide and constantly expanding 



14 ADDRESS OF MR. HAYMOND ON THE 

field of usefulness, in which there is room for the exercise of disinter- 
ested patriotism, of the highest order of abilities, and of the most 
diversified and extensive knowledge. Hence while our Government 
endures, new events will enter into its history, and new actors, from 
time to time, will appear upon the political stage. Their names will 
deserve to be honored for whatever valuable service they may ren- 
der to the country, for their eminent qualities, and for their fidelity to 
the great principles of self-government. 

The name of the late Speaker deserves to be mentioned in honor- 
able connection with his departed and distinguished predecessors. I 
shall make but few allusions to his personal history, but leave this 
duty to those who have been longer and more intimately acquainted 
with him than myself; and what has been already said in this respect 
by others need not be repeated by me. No fulsome adulation can 
add anything to his well-earned reputation or to the perpetuity of his 
fame. I shall attempt nothing beyond what a brief personal acquaint- 
ance with him, the impressions formed of his character, and what may 
be inferred from his public acts, will justify me in stating. Though 
cut down in the prime of life, at that period when the mental facul- 
ties had just attained their full development, he had already achieved 
distinction in his own State for his public services and sterling ability, 
and had also won for himself a national reputation as a legislator. 

Mr. Kerr was endowed by nature with a strong and well-balanced 
intellect. It was of the synthetic order, and peculiarly adapted to 
the investigation of subjects requiring the highest reasoning powers. 

Though an able and forcible speaker, he was not gifted with the 
commanding eloquence of a Clay or Webster; but as a practical 
statesman he evinced unusual sagacity and a thorough comprehen- 
sion of public affairs, as well as of the theory and powers of the Fed- 
eral Government. With ample opportunities, health, and years, he 
would have ranked among the foremost statesmen the country has 
produced. His talents were of a high order, but he did not alone 



trust to natural endowments. His life from early age was that of an 
ardent and indefatigable student. His chief ambition was to acquire 
knowledge and gain mastery of whatever he undertook. His pecu- 
niary circumstances in early life were very limited, but his ambition 
to obtain a good education, both literary and professional, was reached 
by his devotion to hard study and by his indomitable perseverance. 
A successful career of professional life opened before him. His tal- 
ents and qualifications were duly appreciated. He had but fairly 
entered upon this course when he was called by the people to impor- 
tant public trusts. 

As a member of the legislature of Indiana, as a reporter of the 
supreme court of that State, as a Representative in Congress and 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, he discharged every duty 
with unswerving fidelity and with rare ability. In every capacity of 
public employment which he was elected to fill he exhibited the traits 
of honesty, inflexible integrity, and a sacred regard for the inviola- 
bility of public trust. 

His honesty, purity of character, and integrity were unimpeachable 
and above suspicion. He never compromised his principles for the 
sake of expediency, but carried his convictions of justice, honor, and 
right into whatever he undertook. He guarded the public interests 
intrusted in his hands with the same jealousy and care that he would 
his own private affairs. He occupied a position in American pol- 
itics similar to that attributed to Aristides, : 'surnamed the just," in 
the affairs of Athens. Like the great "commoner," Henry Clay, he 
" would rather be right than President." 

A man's character is generally formed by himself. Adventitious 
circumstances may divert the mind into unexpected channels for a 
while, but when there is an inflexible purpose founded upon sound 
convictions, the character of the man will be molded in accordance 
therewith. 

Mr. Kerr shaped the course of his life in pursuance to a fixed pur- 



1 6 ADDRESS OF MR. HAYMOND ON THE 

pose. The acquisition of knowledge was one of the chief objects of 
his life, and his assiduity and perseverance to obtain this end were 
seldom equaled. He had none of that ambition that would lead him 
to aspire to places of honor by any means that would conflict with 
his well-confirmed notions of justice, morality, and integrity. He 
had no sectional ambition or animosity to gratify. His patriotism 
was of that character not bounded by State lines, but which compre- 
hended the interests of the entire country. He was ever a champion 
of the great principles of self-government and constitutional liberty. 
He was ever jealous and watchful of all encroachments of power 
against the bulwark of freedom, the Federal Constitution. 

His recent services as Speaker of this House afford us a clear con- 
ception of his nature and the sublime traits of his character. In pur- 
suance to his convictions of duty, he essayed each day to preside over 
the deliberations of the House, and only retired from his post when 
his wearied and exhausted frame would no longer permit him to re- 
main. His indomitable will and wonderful energies supported him 
after it was apparent that his physical powers were unequal to the 
task. But hope seemed to cheer him on with its delusive promises. 
His mind was clear and unsubdued, while the earthly tabernacle was 
sinking from the consuming fires within. Summer came, and its de- 
pressing heat so overcame him that he was at length forced to aban- 
don his post of duty, leave the city, and seek refuge in the salubrious 
atmosphere amid the mountains of Virginia. But the change pro- 
duced only a temporary effect. His soul calmly resigned the tene- 
ment no longer fitted to retain it, and took its peaceful flight to that 
"house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The death of 
such a man as the late Speaker, at this perplexing period of our his- 
tory, is a national calamity. 

His broad patriotism, his unsullied integrity, and his unswerving 
fidelity to principle and justice, were such as commanded the respect 
of the whole country, and would have proved invaluable had he con- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 17 

tinned with us. The commonwealth whose interests he has -so faith- 
fully guarded will long miss his services in the national councils and 
mourn the loss of one of her brightest jewels. 

His life was gentle, and the elements 

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world, This was a man. 



/Address of Mr. Monroe, of Ohio 

Mr. Speaker: I was not favored with such a degree of intimacy 
with the late distinguished Speaker of this House as was enjoyed by 
many members, and hence may not present so accurate, and certainly 
cannot present so complete, a view of his character as could others. 
But such opportunity as I had to become acquainted with him greatly 
interested me, and it may not be amiss to state frankly just the im- 
pression which his qualities of mind and heart made upon me. 

In listening to him, whether in conversation or in debate, the first 
quality which arrested attention was his intellectual clearness. His 
thought came to him well defined and in a strong light. He had a 
certain, definite thing to say; he knew precisely what it was and 
what he wished to accomplish by saying it. What he clearly saw, 
he clearly communicated. The hearer could seldom be in doubt as 
to his meaning. He was called reticent. But until he could think 
and speak clearly, he had nothing to say. The habit of his mind 
could accept no other conditions of speech. In debate, his single 
aim was to be understood. No temptation to appear eloquent or 
sparkling could turn him aside from this end. His mind rejected 
ornament. Illustration by means of comparison and figures of speech, 
he did not much need. A severe simplicity and directness marked all 
his efforts. 

With this perspicuity of thought and expression, not unnaturally, 
was associated a high degree of intellectual force. He had power 



IO ADDRESS OF MR. MONROE ON THE 

of statement, felicity in arrangement, logical skill, and depth of con- 
viction. These qualities gave great vigor and effectiveness to his dis- 
course. His argument always looked strong, if not impregnable, and 
he was always in earnest. One who differed from him and refused to 
accept his conclusions, was compelled to admit that they were urged 
with a certain convincing force which it was not easy to resist. 

To these intellectual qualities must be added another which was 
largely moral — the judicial candor and fairness of his mind. This 
was not always very apparent upon first acquaintance. He exhibited 
a certain outward severity in debate which did not give promise of 
that capacity for impartial judgment which he really possessed. His 
sharp-cut sentences sometimes wounded the feelings and gave of- 
fense. But further acquaintance showed that this sternness was more 
of manner than of spirit. It was in great measure due to nervous 
conditions resulting from ill-health, and did injustice to his real char- 
acter. One who approached him to call attention to new aspects of 
questions under discussion, found him not only an attentive listener 
but often willing to admit a measurable modification of his own views. 
His convictions, when clearly formed, were, no doubt, firmly held; but 
he antagonized principles rather than men, and respected the charac- 
ter and the argument of his opponent. This quality of judicial fair- 
ness became more apparent after his election to the office of Speaker. 
I think it must then have been evident to the whole House that it 
was his earnest desire to administer the duties of his high place with 
perfect impartiality. 

Closely allied to this quality of judicial candor wai his undoubted 
goodness of heart. It must be admitted that this, also, was not 
always freely acknowledged at first. In the Forty-second Congress 
I sometimes heard him spoken of as cold, reserved, and unsympa- 
thetic. But those who knew him well felt that this coldness was 
superficial. It sprung in part from a diffidence which was both gen- 
uine and creditable. The really modest estimate which he placed 



LIFE AMI < HAKiM I M: 



upon his own powers and accomplishments made him slow to en- 
gage the attention of others, except as duty demanded. His re- 
served manner grew, in part, also, out of the state of his health. 
We sometimes forget that that uninterrupted flow of cordial feeling 
which is so charmingly expressed in the manner of some men, is 
often as much the result of sound physical conditions as of sweet- 
ness of disposition. We should not mistake a bad digestion for a 
bad heart, or confound a torpid liver with moral indifference to the 
happiness of others. All who had admission to the inner circle of 
his friendships bear witness that he was essentially warm-hearted, 
kindly, and affectionate, and that his attachments were as tenacious 
and enduring as they were disinterested and cordial. That he deeply 
appreciated kindness and a just estimation from others was espe- 
cially evident on one marked occasion, when several gendemen had 
shown a friendly interest in his good name upon this floor. With 
tears coursing down his cheeks, he said to a distinguished member of 
this House, " Convey to those gentlemen the thanks of a dying man." 
It was done, and the message was received with a feeling almost as 
deep as that which prompted it. 

But, after all, the distinguished and crowning virtue of his charac- 
ter was his absolute integrity and uprightness. Of course I do not 
mean merely that he was honest and pure in all pecuniary affairs, but 
that he had a hearty love for truth and rectitude for their own sake 
and in all their applications. He had the keenest sense of honor, 
and feared a stain upon his fame more than political defeat — more 
than death. A fact bearing upon this point I have from the best au- 
thority — that of his able successor in this place. The last time he 
was nominated for Congress it was well known that he was, in the 
phrase of the day, " a hard-money man." But there were large num- 
bers of "soft-money men" in his district, and his friends feared that 
the open advocacy of his views would greatly reduce his majority, if 
it did not result in his defeat. A committee waited upon him and 



20 ADDRESS OF MR. HOLMAN ON THE 

suggested that it might be more prudent in his addresses to the peo- 
ple not to speak at length upon the importance of a return to specie 
payments. "Gentlemen," was his reply, "it would be better that I 
should be defeated, and that my party should be defeated in me, than 
that I should knowingly lead one man to vote for me under a delu- 
sion." 

To conclude, though often weak in body he was thoroughly strong 
and sound in all that constitutes a rational being — sound in mind, 
sound in heart, sound in character; and he died, as such a man might 
be expected to die, in the profession of that Christian faith whose mis- 
sion it is to impart health and soundness to the race of man. 

To us it belongs to speak rather of character as it is revealed to us 
here than of the destiny which awaits it hereafter; but as I sat this 
morning pondering my sad and yet inspiring theme, there involun- 
tarily recurred to me the well-known lines of that remarkable man 
of our time who has written the sweetest and most thoughtful me- 
morial poetry in all literature: 

And, doubtless, unto him is given 

A life that bears immortal fruit 

In such great offices as suit 
The full-grown energies of heaven. 



J^DDRESS OF ^MR. |1oLMAN, OF INDIANA. 

Mr. Speaker: In the closing hour of the last session of Congress, as 
we were preparing to leave this hall and return after a weary absence 
to the blessed shelter of our homes, in the midst of the tumult and 
excitement incident to that event there was a pervading sentiment 
that we could not adjourn without expressing to Michael C. Kerr, 
the then honored Speaker of this House, then absent from the capital 
and seeking in the mountains of Virginia a re-invigoration of his fail- 
ing powers, some words of sympathy; and we all remember how well 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. :[ 

the universal sentiment of this House was expressed by the eloquent 
and kindly words of the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, 
[Mr. Banks.] This message of friendship and of generous sympa- 
thy from his associates in a high public trust, from this House, 
representing the views and guarding the fortunes of a great people, 
was the last utterance that fell upon his ear from the great theater on 
which his own high reputation had been achieved, and from which 
he had so recently withdrawn never to return. Who shall say how 
soothing and consoling this message was to our departed friend in 
that final vicissitude of life ! As it fell from the lips of his distin- 
guished associate and friend, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. 
Cox,] who shall say how it buoyed up his drooping spirits! The 
sympathy of a nation, mingling with the love of wife and child and 
friends, closing the one life even while the new opened with glimpses 
of the infinite and the immortal ! 

We had scarcely reached our homes when the announcement came, 
Michael C. Kerr is dead, and the heart of a great people uttered a 
sigh of regret. Michael C. Kerr had scarcely reached the prime 
of his manhood ; he had been in public life for a comparatively brief 
period ; and yet his natural abilities and attainments and the struggles 
of an honorable ambition had placed him in the foremost rank of the 
citizens of the Republic, while his just conceptions of public duty, his 
singleness of purpose to promote the general welfare in the employ- 
ment of political power, and, above all, the severe and impartial 
integrity of his judgment in public affairs, had secured to him respect 
and confidence of a great people. Surely his was a fortunate life ; 
fortunate for his country, of high honor for himself. 

Mr. Kerr, with more than ordinary attainments in the general field 
of intellectual culture, had devoted his most valuable and maturer 
years to the learning connected with his public duties. His chief 
study was the science of government, the laws of political economy, 
and the principles of the social fabric of life in its relations to the 



22 ADDRESS OF MR. HOLMAN ON THE 

state. He was not an enthusiast, but a severe and impartial seeker 
after truth. He was in no sense a Utopian. His opinions were 
based on precedents and the teachings of history, and he questioned 
with impartial purpose the institutions of government which have 
perished as well as those which have survived, for the just principles 
of political society and the true relations of the citizen to the state. 
His opinions were convictions, and he stood by them with unflinch- 
ing courage. His temper was neither compromising nor conciliatory ; 
he sought to convince, not to persuade, and shrank from no contest 
where his principles were involved. He had carefully studied the 
early history of the Republic, and was thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit and the opinions of its founders. He esteemed the vigorous 
maintenance of constitutional limitations on delegated power the most 
perfect safeguard of public liberty that human intelligence could de- 
vise. His theories of the social compact limited the domain of gov- 
ernment to the maintenance of public order and the administration 
of justice, leaving all else to the untrammeled enterprise of the citizen 
and the moral power that springs from self-reliance, enlightened con- 
science, and cultivated intelligence of the people. 

He was a true American, and gloried in the commanding influence 
of his country among the nations; and following the result of his 
deductions as to the just principles of government, as an outgrowth of 
the implied social compact, he believed in the fraternity of the na- 
tions, "that the world of mankind should not be considered in frag- 
ments, but that all peoples were reciprocally dependent ; " hence he 
insisted that the intercourse of the nations should be untrammeled, 
that true statesmanship would bring the cultivated world together, 
and that commerce should be free. 

As a legislator Mr. Kerr accepted the maxim "the world is gov- 
erned too much." He abhorred special and class legislation and every 
form of monopoly, demanding the just equality of all the citizens of 
the state. He held that a plain, simple government, with severe 



LIFE AMI CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C KERR. 



23 



limitations on delegated powers, frugally administered, was the noblest 
outgrowth of the cultivated intelligence of our age. 

While neither impulsive nor an enthusiast, but cool, dispassionate, 
and logical in his mental organization, he was most earnest and de- 
voted in his friendships, but asked nor gave quarter in conflicts of 
opinion. He was frank, ingenuous, and incapable of deception, a 
lover of truth and justice, controlled by a high sense of duty, even if 
time shaU here and there demonstrate, as it reasonably may, the falli- 
bility of his judgments, (and what perfection in judgment or attain- 
ments in statesmanship can escape this?) the records of Congress 
will for all coming time bear testimony with what unswerving fidelity, 
in the light of his conscientious convictions, he fulfilled his high trust 
as a representative of the people. He followed his principles with- 
out fear or hesitation to their logical results as a Representative on 
this floor. No fear of the consequences to himself deterred him. He 
yielded without reserve to the mastery of his convictions, and trusted 
to time and events to vindicate the integrity of his opinions. 

Mr. Kerr was not in the ordinary sense of the term an orator. 
He never seemed to speak with a view to rhetorical effect. He sel- 
dom if ever appealed to the passions or prejudices of his hearers; yet 
hi was the master of a very high order of eloquence. He had a 
complete mastery of the English language. His style of composition 
was elevated and elegant, compact, clear, and logical; his delivery 
at times fervid or impassioned, and always clear, distinct, and power- 
ful. In the current debates on this floor his distinct, concise, positive, 
and logical method of reasoning never failed to arrest the attention 
of the House. 

Mr. Kerr was not only an intellectual man, but his will was abso- 
lutely the master — a mastery that only death itself could subdue. 
After his election as Speaker of this House, surrounded by embarrass- 
ment in arranging the details of organization, prostrated by a fatal 
malady, feeble and suffering, he applied himself to the task with 



24 ADDRESS OF MR. BURCHARD ON THE 

unfaltering purpose. When he left this Hall never to return, with the 
hand of death upon him, the fortitude of his mind was unshaken. 
The fresh breezes of the mountains did not arrest the decay of nature, 
and with the fortitude of a Christian and the composure of a sage, 
assured of an honorable remembrance by his country, he met the 
inevitable fate — 

Like one who wraps the drapery of liis couch 
About hiru ami lies down to pleasant dreams. 

Michael C. Kerr is dead. The record of a good life is complete. 
May that record perpetuate his virtues and the services he has ren- 
dered to his country as long as time shall endure. 



^Address of ^VIr. ^urchard, of Jllinois. 

Mr. Speaker: Although Death with busy hand has repeatedly 
snatched Senators and Representatives from the post of duty, never 
before has he stalked boldly into this Hall and taken away a Speaker 
of the House — its presiding officer and head. 

During this Congress the grim tyrant has unmistakenly displayed 
his resistless power and remorseless will. When the Representatives 
assembled one year ago, at the commencement of the first regular 
session, the Capitol was draped in mourning. Henry Wilson, "Vice- 
President of the United States, had been stricken and numbered with 
the dead. His mortal remains, with national honors, as became the 
office and the man, had been borne to their last resting-place in the 
bosom of the commonwealth he so warmly loved and so long repre- 
sented. 

Again assembled, the somber emblems of sorrow that surround the 
vacant Speaker's seat and front the waiting Representatives antici- 
pate the official announcement that Michael C. Kerr, the Speaker 
of the House, for the last time has presided over its deliberations. 
To-day we banish the excitement of legislative debate and withdraw 



.'HARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 



•s 



our thoughts from the great events and grave and momentous ques- 
tions of the hour, to bestow the accustomed and merited honors and 
pay a grateful tribute to the memory of a friend and associate, a Rep- 
resentative of the people, and a presiding officer of the House. 

Rightly to estimate the public character and services of Michael 
C. Kerr, it must be considered in connection with the times in which 
he lived and the great questions in 'which he took a part. 

Mr. Kerr entered congressional life in the closing scenes of a his- 
toric drama, played by real and living characters in successive acts, 
which opened witlr-legislative discussion, culminated in bloody strife, 
and ended in the establishment of universal liberty and political 
equality throughout the nation. For nearly a century slavery, the 
evil genius of American institutions, presaged disaster and endan- 
gered the perpetuity of the Union. Its overthrow and utter annihila- 
tion was the grand historic event in the first century of the Republic. 
Its constitutional prohibition had already been secured (and the last 
of the confederate forces had surrendered) when in December, 1S65, 
Mr. Kerr became a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress as Repre- 
sentative from the State of Indiana. He, with the other statesmen of 
that Congress, was brought at once to consider what plan was safest 
and wisest for the restoration of the seceding States to their practi- 
cal relations to the Union. Great constitutional and legal questions 
were involved. 

His mind, trained to habits of logical reasoning and judicial investi- 
gation, subjected every measure to the closest scrutiny. He did not 
shrink from encountering in debate upon these subjects the oldest and 
most experienced members of the House. By apt citation of prece- 
dent or authority in support of his views, he at once took rank as an 
able debater and diligent student of constitutional law. 

A strict constructionist in interpreting the grants of Federal power, 
he sharply criticised and earnestly opposed the policy and measures 
then adopted as the basis of reconstruction in the seceding States. 



2b ADDRESS OF MR. BURCHARD ON THE 

We are perhaps too near and many of us have been too prominent 
actors to be able to pass unbiased judgment upon the results achieved 
or failures that may have ensued. If fears have not been realized, 
and evils predicted and objections urged have proved illusory, we 
cannot say that an opposition which secures more deliberate consid- 
eration and seeks to point out supposed defects and injurious con- 
sequences is profitless. 

My personal acquaintance with Mr. Kerr commenced in the 
Forty-first Congress, and by assignment to the same committee-duty 
in the Forty-second Congress our personal association became fre- 
quent and intimate. In the daily discussions of great public inter- 
ests and economic questions, for months under consideration in that 
Congress, no one who heard Mr. Kerr in committee or on the floor 
will deny him honesty of purpose, fearlessness in the avowal of his 
convictions, and ability in presenting and explaining his conclusions. 
He rose above personal considerations. Friendship could not allure 
him to support a measure he disapproved. He despised all shams 
and pretenses. He was a stranger to deceit. He gave no comfort- 
ing assurances to a claimant with a hopeless case. Special legisla- 
tion was his aversion. He hated monopolies and congressional 
favoritism. His bold and manly course in avowing and advocating 
a financial policy at variance with the supposed current of popular 
opinion in his own State challenged the admiration and won the 
respect of even political opponents, as well as the thoughtful men of 
the country. It doubtless made him Speaker of this House. In 
that high position he did not disappoint the expectations of friends 
or the country. 

In his rulings and decisions all acknowledged that he aimed to be, 
as a worthy Speaker should, impartial, just, fair, and absolutely right. 
He presided with dignity, observing as well as exacting the courtesy 
due to members and to the Chair. 

Such was the record and impression made by the late Speaker ere 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 27 

declining strength compelled him to designate other occupants, and 
finally leave the chair in order to seek restoration of failing health 
away from the exciting scenes of congressional life. 

The hopes and prayers of a devoted wife and loving son, the min- 
istrations of watchful friends, were vain and futile. Amid the then 
incipient excitement and rising storm of political discussion and par- 
tisan passion incident to a presidential campaign, his peaceful spirit 
deserted its earthly tenement and was wafted to its eternal rest. 

Thus the all-conqueror, again exulting, reminds us of his resistless 
power. The law-maker is not beyond his mandate. The mighty 
and the lowly are alike subject to his will. But death triumphs only 
over man's mortal frame. Its material elements dissolve and com- 
mingle with their mother earth. Dust returns to dust. But this is 
the limit to death's power. 

The man, his character and achievements still survive in memory, 
in influence, and far-reaching results. 

Great deeds, grand, heroic words, and thoughts beautiful or sublime 
strike responsive chords and are re-echoed and reproduced in other 
sympathetic souls. They live and inspire, mold, guide, and sway 
present and future generations. 

The manly form of Michael C. Kerr will never again enter this 
Hall. He rests from his labors and conflicts. Triumphs and honors 
cannot allure him to earthly scenes. 

His mortal remains are moldering in the dust, but his lofty char- 
acter, his example, and influence will live and remind us that manly 
sincerity, integrity, and honesty of purpose ennoble and exalt the pos- 
sessor more than high position and earthly honors. 



y^DDRESS OP yVlR. POX, OF JTeW JoRK. 

Mr. Speaker : The Representatives of thirty-seven independent 
States this day pause in their deliberations for the welfare of forty- 



20 ADDRESS OF MR. COX ON THE 

five millions of people to offer to the memory of a great and good 
man the solemn anguish of a nation for its loss, and their sympathy 
with a family and constituency in their bereavement. 

The lapse of time which heals up the green and "bleeding wounds 
of sorrow, and which makes too often ceremonies like this the mere 
mockery of woe, has had no balm save that which preserves the rec- 
ollection of our friend, no dew of refreshing save the sweet dew of 
his memory. 

It is eminently fitting that this House should place upon the tomb 
of its late presiding officer, and the third officer of the Government, a 
civic crown ! 

The catalogue of American representatives is a catalogue of mor- 
tality. Our political system has in it much of popular caprice, and 
more of providential vicissitude. Of those that were here when I 
first entered this Hall but four or five remain. As I look about this 
Hall I perceive one and only one of my Ohio colleagues [Mr. VV. S. 
Groesbeck] who was a member of the Thirty-fifth Congress ; and 
he will share my thought and feeling. The first death which we were 
called upon to mourn was that of a beloved southern statesman and 
soldier, John A. Quitman. Subsequently and how frequently have 
others fallen ! 

I feel almost isolated, standing between the many dead, who were 
friends, and the living who in a few years will be numbered with the 
dead ; but in all these chances and changes of time it has been my 
lot to cheer and not to sadden. In the home and among kindred for 
two generations it was not for me to weep, but to dry the tear of 
others. When the great moan went up that Douglas was indeed 
dead, and in that solemn hour for the country I came forth to the 
stricken men who surrounded my Ohio home to hear the last tele- 
graph — not to mourn but to comfort them with hope. In the dark 
hour when the country was filled with battle-cries and blood, I lifted 
on high not the wail of Jeremiah, but the joy of Isaiah, in the hope 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 20 

that soon the waste places would be built up and the old leaf and 
bloom return with the spring. I tried to bring good tidings, to bind 
up the broken-hearted; and to them that mourn in Zion, to give unto 
them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment 
of praise for the spirit of heaviness. 

On another and recent occasion, and as the shadows gathered over 
the Rockbridge Mountains, it was my place to give what of comfort 
I could, by fringing the cloud with golden hope to the stricken. But 
on this occasion it is my privilege and my infinite relief to mourn as 
one who has not merely lost a friend, but as a citizen who has lost a 
compatriot, and, as a Representative, to deplore a brother who in this 
dire trial of our institutions is not with us to guide. 

It may not be out of place here to say that, in spite of marked 
contrasts of character, I shared with Mr. Kerr many of the burdens, 
studies, and sympathies of life. It was a sad pleasure to stand with him 
at the last, on the shore of that vast ocean which he knew that he must 
sail so soon. Racked with more than mortal anguish in his last sick- 
ness ; harassed with a false accusation which touched the very heart 
and marrow of his character ; his body shrinking and shrinking to 
the very imagery of death the skeleton ; yet his spirit was as calm 
as a still, sweet morning, as it rises above yonder azure mountains 
where he died, and his will as linn as their rocky base. Unappalled 
by the terrors of the unknown world, he passed away out of the beau- 
tiful valley where he sojourned into the valley of the shadow. Naught 
remained but the mere phantom of a body. This was borne to his 
home in Indiana. The theme over his remains was well chosen : "A 
good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor 
rather than silver and gold." Until the last flower faded from the 
earth around his home, loving crowds thronged to the cemetery, and 
every Sabbath his friends and constituents made their pilgrimages to 
lay, with their sympathy, immortelles upon his grave. 

He died at the Alum Springs, West Virginia. It is an old resort, an 



3° ADDRESS OF MR. COX ON THE 

intervale of beauty, a charming little park sweetly embosomed in the 
Blue Ridge ; a lonely spot, with now and then a habitation, but with 
a bracing air, a splendid forest, and grand mountains. There is a pri- 
meval quietude there, almost a summer-afternoon feeling, as if the lotus- 
eaters of Tennyson had made it a resort aloof from the cries of people 
that do come and go. The only noise is that of murmuring waters. It 
was amid these solemn silences that his last weeks and hours were 
passed. It was amid those remote and pleasant nooks of nature that 
God unloosed his weary star. His was no sudden call. All prep- 
arations, secular and spiritual, possible were made by his own direc- 
tion. The silver cord was not cut hurriedly, nor the golden bowl 
broken in an instant. No holocaust of fire snapped his life's cord 
suddenly. The cord was gently untied; the golden bowl melted 
away as if it were a scarf of vapory amethyst, or rather as the light 
fades away from the firmament at the coming on of evening mild. 
Just as the sun went down, his spirit peacefully departed. The pearl 
dropped from its wasted shell as the sun passed behind the mountain. 
There he lay in the lap of a lovelier nature, by stiller streams and 
fairer meadows than we are wont to fancy in some blest Arcady ; but 
when death came it seemed to make the beauty of the mountains seem 
as barren as the desert ; the flowers and leafage and rocks and hills 
lost their charm, the breeze its freshness, the song of birds its music, 
and the sweet shine of the sun was all joyless. 

But in the mountains did he feel his faith. 
All things responsive to the writing there 
Breathed immortality, revolving life, 
And greatness still revolving — infinite. 
There littleness was not ; the least of things 
Seemed infinite. 

What was that faith ? I could not speak truly and say it was the 
accepted dogmas of any church. He could no more be a mystygogue 
than a demagogue. If he could not accept all that was written about 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 31 

the Savior, he fully sanctioned and truly lived up to the code of 
morals which Christ gave. He believed an honest man to be the best 
Christian. His plan of life was to get all the knowledge he could, 
and use it in doing all the good he could. 

Though his life may have seemed to some reserved, yet his aus- 
terity was but the visor which concealed generosity, tenderness, and 
trustfulness. He sympathized with all men, and only repelled those 
who were exacting and dishonest. His faith was in honest work ; it 
was this that made his home a sacred spot, refined and beautiful, enno- 
bled by delightful intimacies and old-fashioned hospitality. It is not 
a new standard by which he regulated his life. Laborare est orare is 
as old as the fathers of the church. That he made integrity his re- 
ligion, work his orizon, and truth his idolatry, is only repeating the 
written words of the wise and good of all ages. He wrought 

With human hands, the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds. 

To be kind to the widow and fatherless was one of his canons ; and 
this man never in his profession would receive a reward for serving 
them ! To be faithful to his public trust ; and this man no more 
flinched from uttering unpopular than worthy thoughts. Pericles 
in his last illness said : " No Athenian in consequence of any action 
of mine had ever put on mourning." Mr. Kerr could truthfully say 
the same in a better sense. 

When I went at his request to Virginia and to his bedside, and after 
delivering the messages from his friends here, I asked him if he were 
ready to meet the unseen world ; with a glance of gentleness, and a 
pressure of my hand, he declared that he was ready. We talked of the 
mysterious realm. His faith was abiding that in that future there 
was reward for a just life here. As he said, half playfully, he stood 
upon his record. 

It was this pious probity which he impressed upon his people, upon 
Congress, upon his own life, and upon his son. It had its source in the 



heart as well as the head. This is especially observable in the care 
which he gave to his son's tuition, even to the last hours of his life. 
He seldom left his house on his return from his office. As has been 
so well said by his colleague, [Mr. Hamilton,] who offered these reso- 
lutions, he scarcely mingled with the masses of the people, even his 
own constituents, but with kind cheerfulness was wont to retire to his 
home and library. There he studied his favorite authors, examined 
his son in the studies of the day, and filled up each hour with some 
useful thought or exercise. The speech of Flato to the Athenians he 
expressed in his life : " For the glory of parents is an excellent and an 
honorable treasure to their children, making up for the lack of pos- 
sessions and dignities." "Dos est magna parentium virtus." (Hor. Od., 
xxiv, lib. 3.) May I not read from the Chicago Times the record of 
his last advice to his son to illustrate the paternal care and gentle 
worth of this our best representative man ? 

A few days before his death, Mr. Kerr had a conversation with his son, in the 
course of which he said : "I have nothing to leave you, my son, except my good 
name. Guard it and your mother's honor, and live as I have lived." He further 
said : "Pay all my debts, if my estate will warrant it without leaving your mother 
penniless. Otherwise pay what you can, and then go to my creditors and tell them 
the truth, and pledge your honor to wipe out the indebtedness." 

The source of this man's power was not altogether intellectual ; it 
was in the affections. What a void has been made in his western home ! 

Who can tell the anguish of the bereaved ! Even the delights of 
the old home in the West intensified it. " She was at home," writes 
the bereaved son of the widowed mother, "among friends ; but she 
could not feel at home, for he was not there. Everything suggested 
father to her. Something would requicken her sorrow. The finding 
of an old letter, the half-read book with the mark of leaving off, and 
all those thousand ever-recurring, inconsiderable reminders that keep 
the heart of sorrow painfully darkened by the shadow of him who has 
gone ; these things lengthened out and intensified the grief till the 



burden became too hard to bear." For .such human agony there is 
no compensation in the honors and preferments of our life. The cur- 
rent of domestic bliss which once flowed so calmly, reflecting the very 
heavens on its mirrored bosom, when thus overshadowed — where is 
the adequate return in the plaudits and honors of men ? To wait 
and wish, and to hear no step, no voice of husband and father ; the 
olden aid, which 'directed, supported, and comforted, gone ; gone ; 
no advent to glorify the gloom — this is to the overworn and wearied 
watcher what mere mechanism of tongue or pen cannot express. 
Expression only benumbs the soul of such griefs as these. Our tears 
freeze at the fountain, our sympathies die in the attempt to express 
them. 

History and oratory have been spent in haranguing about the heroes 
of war. Military genius and renown have been themes of encomium 
to quicken patriotism and endear private virtues. In the funeral ora- 
tions over the dead Greeks who fell in fight, Mars alone received 
apotheosis. We have orations by Pericles, Lysias, and Plato pre- 
served in the crystal beauty of Thucydides. All the muses and 
graces do obeisance to the solemn rapture of the eloquent hour when 
in graceful periods and imperishable language the orator came forth 
from the monument, ascended the tribunal, and, with panegyric be- 
yond the reach of modern art, displayed the virtues of the dead. But 
these eulogies were in praise only of martial glory. Only once do I 
rei all the words of an inspired Greek, forgetting for a moment the 
custom of the time, admonishing the people "that the whole earth 
was the sepulcher of renowned men," whether renowned for honor- 
able exertion in war or peace. It is the old vaunting story of the 
Bible even: ••Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of 
thousands." The helmet, the plume, the spear, the sword, the onset — 
these are the themes of classic funeral eloquence. Men are prone 
to forget what has been done by the gifted and great whose asso- 
ciations were those of art, literature, benevolence, and science. We 



34 ADDRESS OF MR. COX OX THE 

seldom remember long those whose lives were rounded with the 
humility of good deeds and gentle affections. Men rear monuments 
and arches to the captains of armies, rarely to the leaders of opinion. 
Few mounds of green turf remain to recall the great thoughts which 
lived in the heroic lives of such men as Plato, Newton, Saint Xavier, 
Howard, or Cobden. Monuments to military men overshadow these 
little hillocks on whose breast tears fall and over whose dust blossoms 
cluster. Rome has her arch to Titus, Iter column of Trajan. The 
grave of Agamemnon has been found and glorified by a German 
scholar; and the exhumed Atridaj are more honored by emperors and 
kings than the blind bard who sung their praises along the Agean. 
But, thanks to a better civilization, even the successful general to- 
day must have something more than the brute instinct which led 
Pelissier to smoke the Kabyles in their caves. He must have more 
than the engineering skill of Todleben and Von Moltke. He must 
have that knowledge of human nature by which to rule men, not 
merely in the ranks, but in the senate, in the forum, and among the 
masses. He must be, as was said of Wellington, something more 
than a commissary or clerk. He must minister to peaceful states ; he 
must think like lightning, and strike with its vehemence and fatality 
for tranquil homes and human happiness in great crises ; he must 
have the gentle amenities of culture along with the heart of the hero 
Above all, he must have inwoven like threads of light the patriotic 
devotion which sees in his country's flag a symbol of order and unity 
and in his country's civil glory his highest hope and inspiration. The 
legends and songs, flags and heraldry, with their beasts and boast- 
ings, show through all time that prowess in the encounter of body 
with body is the barbaric yet universal code of honor. But when the 
sword of patriotism is jeweled in the hilt with civil virtues, then a 
Washington rescues the mere wager by battle from its irrational fame, 
and gives added glory to the gem and new splendors to the magiste- 
rial sword ! 



May something, sir, be pardoned to the spirit of eulogy, when I 
say that these elements of true grandeur found a rare combination in 
Michael C. Kerr. 

Patient in study, gentle yet firm in his feelings and determinations, 
inspired with the courage of true patriotism, defying, as he did, the 
mob with the same energy with which he analyzed a tariff or de- 
nounced an exacting monopoly — arranging, classifying, assimilating 
details for practical service, making his conscience his religion— he 
stands, more than most of the men who have taken part in our coun- 
cils since the war, as an exemplar of intelligent and fearless, pure 
and gentle patriotic duty. Yet he was not all judgment, else he 
would not have been a patriot; he was not all passion, else he would 
not have been a statesman. In debate, as in private talk, he had at 
times great vehemence of manner and great intrepidity in action. 
He did not toss his thoughts about easily; he was at times timid in 
their utterance till thoroughly assured by patiently marshaling them, 
and then he was eloquent. Spurning traditions and legends, believ- 
ing in no law not revocable ; not anxious to force men to do what 
he thought was best for them; with a noble rage at wrong and a dis- 
gust of parasites, he would add no largess to bad gains and greeds. 
What were the meshes of old custom to his fresh, inquiring mind? 
While he never turned away from a new truth, while he had no re- 
spect for mere antiquity, while he would clear away the lush growth 
over our select shrines of duty, he revered the ancient ways of the 
Constitution and all its muniments with the ardor of a neophyte 
Sensitive to every point of honor, he was not less careful of his own 
fame when assailed by perjury than of the financial and patriotic 
honor of his country. 

But, sir, while the contemplation of his character is no compensa- 
tion for his loss, it is not less instructive than proper for us to know 
the sources of that magic which won the support of his constituency 
and the preferments of this Congress. The secret of this talismanic 



3 6 ADDRESS OF MR. COX ON THE 

power lay in the discipline of his mind. He was an example, by no 
means uncommon in this country, of one who was strengthened by 
wrestling with adversity. The first half of his life was a struggle with 
poverty, the last with disease. Rising above the trammels of early 
life, he thought more of brain than of brawn. Desiring a larger 
range of usefulness and ambitious of thorough education, he strug- 
gled out of difficulty into a profession where his naturally keen ana- 
lytic mind had full play. He was not only a good lawyer and advo- 
cate, but his mind had a judicial cast, which he would no doubt have 
illustrated in the chair had he lived, and for which rare trait he was 
selected as the reporter to the supreme court of Indiana. He be- 
lieved in settled principles of authority, binding as firmly as the pagan 
gods were bound by the decree of fate. But while he loved law, he 
loved liberty. As a Massachusetts scholar has said, " He loved them 
together," and because, like the nitrogen and oxygen of the atmo- 
sphere, they give vitality when combined in proper proportions. 

To my mind he does not rate so highly as the lawyer, only because 
he was more of the scholar and the statesman. His pre-eminence 
in the last character came from his constant preparation in the first. 
Every speech of his was a study, a treatise. When he spoke on 
matters connected with the laws of wealth, trade, and currency, his 
lucid and cogent style was not more remarkable than his abundant 
information. 

How was this preparation made? He seldom read works of fic- 
tion or frivolity. The weightier and more solid authors were to his 
taste and preference. He never read but one or two novels, and 
those in the last of his life. George Idiot's Adam Bede attracted him 
because it endeavored to solve problems of social science. He sel- 
dom read poetry, save Homer's Iliad and Milton; though Shakes- 
peare was always near him, and the Bible frequently consulted. In 
this respect he was not unlike Tristem Burgess, the orator, of Rhode 
Island. He never intertangled the roses of poetry with the bearded 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 37 

grain of his philosophy. Still he was a great reader of books. His 
first act when he came to his home from the office was to take up an 
unfinished book. He left a library of twenty-five hundred volumes, 
each bought one by one, read, marked, and digested. His library is 
full of standard works on political economy, to which he always added 
more, almost until the day of his death. 

For a man apparently so uncongenial and cold, the liberalities of 
his culture, taste, and logic are remarkable. He excluded no volume, 
however heterodox or orthodox, from his library or his mind. Jeffer- 
son was his ideal of a statesman and Webster of an orator. Pic- 
tures of both hang in his library. His scrap-book was kept for the 
"best thoughts" of the fathers, as he called them. No ethical or 
partisan bias controlled his reason. You will see in his library Re- 
nan's Life of Jesus huddling close to McCosh's Evidences of Chris- 
tianity; Tyndall shakes hands with Paley; Draper's Religion and 
Science stands by Buckle's History of Civilization ; Barnes's Notes 
keep company with Tom Paine ; Jefferson and Madison are almost 
imbound with Hamilton and Jay; Henry C. Carey lies between Way- 
land and John Stuart Mill to bridge the abyss between free trade and 
protection. Friends and enemies were alike welcome to his mind, 
and he tested them all in the crucible of his reason. 

Out of this abundant reading he was enabled, by his method, his 
regularity and discipline, to evoke general thoughts for practical life. 
By his masculine understanding, steady perseverance, and unwearied 
resolution he rose above illness, professional avocations, and the local 
demands of his constituency to a higher plane than most statesmen. 
This element of persistency belonged to his natural traits of character. 
It was illustrated during his life. It was illustrated in the chair, in 
the struggle with disease, to fill his duty. It was illustrated in the 
last hours of his tenacious life, for his reason remained unimpaired to 
the end. 

I have said that his reason and conscience were his religion. It 



3» ADDRESS OF MR. COX ON THE 

was his habit to submit everything to this test. He squared his life 
with scrupulous reason. No temporal interest of his own or that of 
his family swerved him from following this guiding element of his 
character. 

He was a scholar ; he was a disciple of the positive philosophy, 
devoted to the tenets of Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Compte, 
and Buckle. His political science was drawn, as most political sci- 
ence is, from those of similar philosophic inclinations. Jeremy Ben- 
tham was his teacher, consciously or unconsciously. His ideas were 
not transcendental, but utilitarian. The bent of his mind was in- 
creased by his studies in this school of philosophy, but there was no 
unreasoning skepticism in his character. 

Despite his unwillingness to believe in anything miraculous or im- 
probable, his heart was reverential before the great Omniscience. 
With him reason was the first born, and, though twin with faith, both 
inherited the blessing. If he had any bias in his mind it was toward 
reason, though his faith walked timidly hand in hand with it. It is 
said that the sun is reason, while faith is the lesser orb that shines by 
night. Michael C. Kerr made the great light to rule his busy day. 
How far the lesser ruled in the contemplations of the night only God 
knows. If faith shines only so long as she reflects some faint illumi- 
nation from the brighter orb, what casuistry shall discard this man's 
religious nature from the shrine of a true religion ? 

It is not necessary to renew the scenes of his death-bed here and 
now. Only this may be said, from competent medical authority, that 
rarely has one of our race been gifted with such a tenacity of life. 
He lived after his pulse ceased to beat. This fact may serve some- 
what to account for the positiveness of his purposes in life and the 
positive philosophy to which his intellect inclined. 

He was a democrat on principles fixed by his studies and philos- 
ophy, I was about to say, by his religion. Yet (as has been truly 
said) he was averse to the rough encounters of the hustings. It was 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 39 

difficult to induce him to speak outside of his neighborhood. Once 
in New York he promised to talk for five minutes to my friends, but 
when on his feet, and with an audience sympathizing with his free- 
trade ideas, he held the audience for two hours in one great plea for 
his favorite liberalities of commerce and against the mercenary in- 
equalities of protection. These were his favorite themes to illustrate 
his general political ideas. They were to him an enthusiastic senti- 
ment — his principle of action. He traveled abroad to study them. 
He came to Congress to give them vigor and effect. 

He was averse to the crowd. When writing to him about my pro 
tempore visit to the great exposition, he expressed his regret that he 
did not see the grand engine and its wonderful ramifications of har- 
nessed forces; but at the same time he said that he shrank from such 
throngs like the sensitive plant before the human touch. Yet his 
political thoughts were ever "broad, based upon the people's will." 
His dissection of the questions growing out of reconstruction and 
the southern ballot, which had been to him a special study, shows the 
ultimate scorn of a mind utterly hating fraud and the lofty patriot 
who reverenced all sections and respected all rights. It is said that 
the spectroscope reveals that there is a star which burns gold for its 
illumination. By a wonderful coincidence it is the distant star Alde- 
baran, far off in the group of Hyades, which the Rosicrucians, who 
sought to transmute all metals into gold, worshiped. That star was 
their fateful genius for inspiration and alchemy. Not less precious 
to him than if it were a star of gold was each State, distinct in indi- 
viduality and like to each other in a common right, interest, and des- 
tiny, whether shining near or afar! 

O. that God would raise up for our instruction and guidance other 
men of the same exalted type of American manhood — men as just, 
other haters of corruption as earnest, other tribunes of the people as 
peerless and fearless, and other statesmen as lofty and pure in patri- 
otii devotion! When, sir, I perceive the emblem of mourning over 



40 ADDRESS OF MR. COX ON THE 

the seat he so lately occupied, shrouding our ensign, the omen is 
sadly portentous and painfully suggestive. Were he with us in this 
hour of our solicitude, I know, sir, that he would not fail with cour- 
ageous counsel. He would revive the heroism of that parliamentary 
band, before which royal prerogatives cowered, when before the priv- 
ilege of the Commons and its stanch Speakers the bills of right of 
a free people were made paramount- to the thunders of the throne ! 

His fame was not quenched by death — only his opportunity. It 
was said by Theodore Parker of Samuel Adams that he was not in one 
sense a Christian man, but one of Plutarch's men. So was Michael 
C. Kerr. His human worth can only be reckoned by the gravity 
of his loss to us in this perilous and anxious trial for the stability 
and genius of the Government. If liberty through his death has lost 
from this hall of the people one of her purest devotees; if liberty, 
like Algernon Sydney, must go to the scaffold, yet from the scaffold 
she will ascend to another sphere where there is a better code of jus- 
tice and right; and there in that realm, who will give her less stinted 
welcome than the immortal spirit of Michael C. Kerr! 

Under such patriotic thoughts as were his, still surviving death, 
our country may cease from its passionate discord. Then peace will 
bind our States as sheaves are bound in the harvesting, season after 
season, till the latest generation. You, Mr. Speaker, and ye who are 
your brothers in these exalted trusts, ye who have the keeping of this 
bruised and broken land, can ye not all rise under the admonition of 
such a life as our late Speaker lived into a higher sense of duty and 
a more self-sacrificing patriotism? Can we not encompass our be- 
loved land around with a wall of fire that will not burn, but guard ? 
Shall we not do this before its grave yawns; that grave where there 
is no work, nor knowledge, nor device, nor wisdom ? Thus faithful 
unto death in our trusts, as he was, may we not have the promise of 
a crown of everlasting life, which I trust in God he wears ? 



liAKU'II R Ol MIi.'HAKI 



Address of JAr. Plymer, of Pennsylvania. 
Mr. Speaker: This Congress, from the hour of its meeting in De- 
cember, 1S75, until the day of its adjournment in August, 1876, 
stood in the shadow of an impending calamity ! A Speaker was 
elected who, by reason of his long service, his large experience, and 
pre-eminent ability, was deemed worthy of the exalted station. He 
brought to the discharge of its duties a clear head, a sound heart, an 
impartial judgment, and a resolute will; but, sir, it was painfully evi- 
dent to every one that a mortal and fast-consuming malady had 
possession of him. In the very hour of his triumph, when he had 
scaled the heights and reached the goal of his ambition; when there 
lay before bright prospects of future usefulness and still higher honor; 
when he had a right to feel that he was about to enjoy the full fru- 
ition of a laborious and well-spent life, he was summoned to the dread 
conflict with the last enemy, one in which we must all engage, and in 
which no mortal may triumph. For days and weeks and months we 
stood sad and helpless spectators of the fierce struggle. We well 
knew it to be hopeless, and our sorrow was scarcely lessened by our 
admiration for the heroic courage, the sublime fortitude, the dauntless 
spirit with which he marched forth to meet and embrace death. 

Mr. Speaker, it was not my good fortune, as it was yours and that 
of others who hear me, to have served with him in former days, when 
he stood upon this floor the peer of any one in intellect and ability ; 
and therefore I leave it to those who have personal knowledge to 
speak of his merits and services as a legislator and statesman. My 
personal acquaintance with him began with the first session of this 
Congress. Under ordinary circumstances it would necessarily have 
been slight, but painful events, fresh in the recollection of all of us 



42 ADDRESS OF MR. CLYMER ON THE 

and of the whole country, placed me in such relations to him as to 
render it almost a duty, as it is a mournful satisfaction, to put on rec- 
ord my estimate of his character as a man. 

After years of public service, here and elsewhere, he stood at the 
threshold of the grave, comparatively poor in this world's goods, and, 
to his great honor be it spoken, rich in nothing save his good name, 
his character for spotless integrity, his unblemished reputation for 
purity in public and private life. These were his jewels; these were 
the treasures which he had garnered; these he valued more than 
houses and lands or all mere earthly possessions. But, sir, when weak 
and worn by disease, when even hope had fled, when the dark shad- 
ows of death were closing about him, a base and cowardly attempt 
was made to rob him of his good name and send him to his grave 
disgraced and dishonored. It became my painful duty to inform him 
of the nature of the charge preferred against him. He met it with a 
philosophic composure and stern defiance which told of his conscious 
innocence. Courting the most searching investigation, he demanded 
to meet his base accuser face to face. For long and weary days the 
investigation proceeded. 1 will not attempt to describe the proud 
and defiant spirit with which he met and braved the terrible ordeal. 
So broken and disabled in body, those who knew him best had grave 
fears that death would seal his lips before he could make reply; but 
the very exigency seemed to rekindle and vivify his expiring energies, 
to endow him with new and almost superhuman power. To him it 
was a struggle more grave and terrible than that which he had been 
making for prolonged existence: it was for untarnished reputation, 
for unsullied honor. To the dying man these were dearer and far 
more precious than mere existence, for without them it would have 
been a curse. The hour of his triumphant vindication came, when 
in this chamber each Representative of the American people then 
present rose solemnly in his place and declared his profound i onvic- 
tion of his purity and innocence. Thus the dark cloud which threat- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 43 

encd to obscure the brightness of his setting sun was rolled away, 
and a blessed peace, a serene tranquillity came to the great heart of 
the dying Speaker. 

I may not lift the vail which rightfully separates his inner and 
private from his outer and public life, but it would be unjust to his 
memory did I fail to record his lively sense of this crowning act of 
kindness and justice on the part of those whose good opinion was so 
dear to him. To his sensitive and dying ear it told of the verdict 
which after times would render. It brought profound consolation to 
him. and thereafter he was fully prepared to say "Hinc dimittis." 

His was a proud, sensitive, and imperious nature, even shrinking 
from familiarity with the world, asking little of its sympathy, and car- 
ing less for its applause. He chose to be judged by his acts rather 
than by professions. His convictions were deep and decided upon 
all questions, and he did not hesitate to obey and follow them to their 
ultimate and logical results. He controlled and led his fellow-men 
by the sheer force of his intellect rather than by the influence of his 
heart. He was always a teacher, a leader ; never an imitator or servile 
follower. In any era of our history he would have been a character 
of mark, his moral courage and his mental powers alike fitting him 
for the performance of duties of gravest moment. His death would 
have been a great public loss at any time; in this hour of doubt, un- 
certainty, and danger it is next to irreparable, when we consider the 
character of the man, the dignity and power of his place, the hold 
he had upon the confidence of the people, and the stern and unyield- 
ing fidelity with which he would have dared to perform his whole duty. 

To-day, Indiana stands chief mourner for the son of her adoption, 
Michael C. Kerr; close and next by her side stands Pennsylvania, 
on whose soil he was born and partly reared. She claims a sister's 
sacred right to mourn the loss of an honored child. My poor and 
broken utterances but feebly express her estimate of his worth, her 
profound regard for his memory. 



IT MR. M i KAU\ 



/Address of ^V1r. JAcpnAnY, of Jowa. 

Mr. Speaker: I esteem it a privilege as well as a duty to offer on 
this occasion my humble tribute to the memory of our late lamented 
Speaker. I do so not as a mere empty ceremony, but prompted by 
a profound respect for the great qualities of mind and heart which 
adorned his life, which sustained him in sickness and in death, and 
the memory of which will live long in the history of his country and 
in the hearts of his countrymen. I desire to speak a few words in 
remembrance of his virtues in this place, which was the scene of so 
much of his public career, and on this day, which our records are to 
dedicate sacredly to his memory, because I knew him well and es- 
teemed and honored him in life, while I deeply and earnestly lament 
his death. My personal acquaintance with Mr. Kerr began in the 
Forty-first Congress, in which we served together on the Committee 
of Elections, and although it never ripened into confidential inti- 
macy, it was of that kind which enabled me, as I think, to form a 
just estimate of his character. His active participation in the pro- 
ceedings of Congress, his prominent position among the leaders of his 
party, his fearless, bold, and outspoken action upon all public ques- 
tions, brought him prominently before the House and the country, 
and his associates upon this floor, whether personally intimate with 
him or not, could not fail to know him as a Representative, to appre- 
ciate him as a man, and to realize his great power. He was a man 
of commanding ability. Toward the close of his life his powers were 
of course in some degree impaired by disease; and yet we all know 
how remarkably clear and vigorous were all his rulings as Speaker as 
well as his statement of the ground upon which he placed them. 
When in the full vigor of health he was seldom matched, and I think 
never overmatched, in debate upon this floor. He was a careful stu- 
dent and thinker, and though he spoke frequently, it was never at ran- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 45 

dom, but he always uttered what had been carefully matured and set- 
tled in his own mind. He was a profound lawyer, and in his own 
State as well as elsewhere he stood very high in the ranks of his pro- 
fession. He was a man of intense convictions, and always uttered what 
he thoroughly believed to be true and defended what he thoroughly 
believed to be right, while his denunciation of what he deemed false 
and wrong was always earnest and vigorous. To these rare qualities 
he added thorough honesty and the utmost purity of life in all its rela- 
tions, whether public or private. I may not from personal knowledge 
speak of the beauty and sweetness of his home-life and of his purely 
private and domestic relations, but these have been since his death, 
as they were in his life, the theme upon which those who were very 
near to him have most loved to dwell. 

It is praise, indeed, to say of one departed, "He was a good hus- 
band, a good father, and a good citizen," and when we may add, " He 
was a true patriot, an able and faithful public servant, and a wise and 
sagacious statesman," the eulogy is complete. As a presiding officer 
our late Speaker was a model of dignity, urbanity, and impartiality. 
His course while in the chair was such as not only to command the 
respect but also to win the esteem and confidence of his political 
opponents, as well as his party associates. I take this occasion to 
bear willing and emphatic testimony to this fact. I refer to it with 
great pleasure, because in it I find an illustration of that devotion to 
duty and faithfulness to public trust which distinguished him, and 
which must characterize the life of every really great man. Here is 
to be found one of the surest tests by which to discover a really lofty 
character. When such a character is called to a position where he 
is to decide questions arising between his fellow-men, he is sure to 
rise above every consideration except those which concern justice 
and the law. Mr. Kerr was an active participant in many exciting 
partisan contests upon this floor during his service here, and few men 
ever defended in debate their party or its principles with greater zeal 



ADDRESS OF MR. ATKINS ON THE 



and ability; but as Speaker he seemed to know no party. He took 
his great office with a firm resolve to administer it with perfect 
fidelity, to be absolutely faithful and just, and he kept that purpose 
to the end. 

I speak thus of the deceased Speaker with all the more pleasure 
because, while we were personal friends, we were political opponents, 
and I feel that on that account my poor words of eulogy would be 
very grateful to him if he could hear them, and that they may be a 
source of consolation to the bereaved ones he has left behind. It is 
according to the genius of our institutions that political differences 
should never engender personal animosities. The right of private 
judgment and of free speech is a right so sacred, and belongs so 
sacredly to all, that we are bound to recognize it and respect it in 
our opponents if we would preserve it for ourselves. The great 
American principle of toleration lies at the foundation of our civil as 
well as our religious liberty; and that principle is obeyed in its true 
spirit only by those who have learned, not merely to tolerate an oppo- 
nent, but to honor and respect an honest and manly adversary. Such 
an adversary was Michael C. Kerr; and as it was my pleasure 
while he lived upon all proper occasions to bear testimony to his ex- 
alted character, it is still my pleasure, now that he has passed on into 
that higher and better life, to speak in praise of his many virtues and 
in honor of his memory. 



^Addp^ess of JAp^ ^tkins, of Jennessee. 

Mr. Speaker: At this stage of these memorial ceremonies I con- 
sult the emotions of my heart rather than the dictates of my judg- 
ment in attempting to speak on this mournful occasion. 

The fame and popularity of the distinguished dead, in the State 
of Tennessee, makes it meet that some one of her representatives 
should pay a sincere tribute of respect to the memory of one who so 
largely commanded her admiration and esteem. 



Mil AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 47 

Truly Tennessee gives utterance of her sorrow and sympathy 
with Indiana, who keeps vestal watch over the honor of one of her 
favorite and most distinguished sons, and would remind her that she, 
too, yea, that a nation, claims the patrimony of his fame and in his 
death shares the spoliation and the loss. 

This mute assemblage, these gloomy faces, these pendent trap- 
pings of national sorrow, bespeak a more than ordinary occasion of 
sadness. It is the heart-felt lamentation of the American people, 
through their representatives, over the loss of a wise statesman, a 
pure patriot, and an honest man; while it is a proper manifestation 
of the personal grief, mellowed a little by time, which pervades this 
entire Hall over this unusual if not altogether unprecedented bereave- 
ment, in the death of its presiding officer. 

Already have we gazed with intense admiration upon the living 
portrait of this truly noble man, as it has been faithfully drawn to- 
day by his colleagues and peers. Starting with the first buddings of 
character in infancy, amid the sports and freaks of childhood, until 
ruder and stronger traits unfolded themselves, hardened by the iron 
touch of poverty, when at length he boldly entered the emulous 
walks of a self-reliant manhood ; winning this trophy, bearing off 
that honor, gaining this triumph, all the time assuming responsibili- 
ties and enlarging the scope of his duties and deepening the founda- 
tions of his popularity by the most devoted consecration to the 
public interests, until finally he aspired to the exalted and dis- 
tinguished office of Speaker of this House, and was fortunate enough 
to have the aspiration of his noble ambition crowned with brilliant 
success. 

It is reserved, however, for the hand of affection to trace and 
gather up the incidents and events of his inward life and domestic 
feelings, which, inseparably interwoven, form the woof of his private 
history. These all will be laid away as golden treasures in memory's 
casket, which only is in the keeping of domestic love and filial devo- 



4° ADDRESS OF MR. ATKINS ON THE 

tion, never again to meet with the world's harsh encounter. These 
tender associations let us leave inurned within the sacred chambers 
of inconsolable private grief; but of his outward life and public 
services we may speak, for they belong to the country and to 
society. 

Nor can we fairly forecast his true character even as a public man 
without analyzing in some degree his elementary characteristics. 

Indomitable energy and unflagging perseverance, linked with an 
earnestness born of deep and abiding conviction, marked all of his 
efforts, and enabled him almost invariably to succeed in whatever 
he undertook. With him action always followed conviction. Sprung 
from the ranks of the people, all of his sympathies and principles 
were in accord with them. He was truly a tribune of the people. 
Although devoted to party organization, he never surrendered or 
sacrificed to partisan advantage any real or substantive right which 
belonged alike to all. He was a partisan, but his partisanship was 
used as a means for the accomplishment of just public undertakings, 
and not as an end in the abstract. Watching his career as a public 
man, he impressed me as an honest inquirer after truth. He had a 
simple, child-like faith in its omnipotence, and wherever its clarion 
notes sounded, thitherward he bent his steps and there planted the 
standard of his unswerving fealty. Of course he could not be other 
than reliable, conscientious, and consistent. His character panoplied 
with these noble principles, it was not astonishing that public senti- 
ment of all parties, recently, should have rushed to his rescue, to 
ward off the poisoned javelins of calumny and detraction, before 
even the courts of justice or a committee of Congress were enabled 
to pronounce the decree of his complete vindication. His mind 
turned with instinctive horror from every appearance of indirection, 
deceit, or dishonorable action, sustaining with true courage whatever 
he believed to be right, and opposing with his whole nature what he 
conceived to be wrong. Like Burke, he believed bad men capable 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 49 

of doing any evil, however dark and wicked ; hence he had no 
intimate associations or personal relations only as acquaintance and 
time developed the character and justified the friendship. As a 
consequence his personal friendships were limited, strong, unchange- 
able, and unsuspecting. Such a man was worthy of being the leader 
of the people as he was unquestionably their advocate and defender. 
He did not feel that his official duties, exalted, responsible, and 
honorable as they were, made him an irresponsible ruler or consti- 
tuted in him any superiority to his constituency. He ever bowed 
with graceful and patriotic submission to the adverse will of the 
majority when constitutionally expressed. These attachments to 
popular rights and his unfeigned profession of political faith and 
doctrine created within his manly bosom the broadest and profound- 
est love of country. 

No statesman knew better than he the true nature of our Govern- 
ment, the genius of our free institutions, our past history, foreign and 
domestic relations, and the real temper and interests of the people. 
No one knew better than he that the truest and most steadfast 
friends of liberty are a frugal, intelligent, and virtuous rural popula- 
tion. No one knew better than he from the pages of history that 
avarice, vice, and national vanity, when once allowed to obtain a 
hold upon the rulers of a nation, smother the love of country and 
drive out those simple, manly virtues in the people, by long accus- 
toming them to acts of usurpation and doubtful authority, until they 
finally cease to care to what power they owe allegiance — by what 
they are governed. These dangerous and insidious inroads, gradually 
made upon the rights of the masses, and which so often have befallen 
free governments and caused their overthrow, ever caught the fire of 
his jealous eye and encountered in their incipiency the whole weight 
of his uncompromising opposition. 

And thou in this shalt find thy monument, 

When tyrant's crests and tombs of brass are spent. 



50 ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD ON THE 

Clothed with the delicate trust by party suffrage of exercising 
magisterial authority over the representatives of all the people, he 
never forgot that he best vindicated the honor and dignity of his 
high position by observing the utmost fairness in his rulings and 
maintaining toward all, without regard to partisan distinctions, per- 
fect impartiality. 

As the mother of the Gracchi, when asked for her jewels, pointed 
to her sons, so do a free constituency regard the representative 
whose private life presents a stainless escutcheon, while the mirror 
of his public record reflects only the images of truth, virtue, and 
patriotism. 

While this matter-of-fact world excludes even the contemplation 
of the ideal and counts nothing worth save the practical and the 
true, yet where in all the land whose reputation of all of our public 
men for the last quarter of a century would furnish the artist a truer 
model or the poet a more perfect ideal of human virtue and worth 
than the moral and mental traits which made up the manly and 
noble character of Michael C. Kerr ? 

Alas ! he has passed away, but his name is one of the household 
words of this Hall of Representatives, and will live with the truest 
and noblest who have worn its chief honors. 

To live with fame 
The gods allow to many, but to die 
With equal luster, is a blessing Heaven 
Selects from all her choicest boons of Fate, 
And with a sparing hand, on few bestows. 



y^DDP^ESS OF Mr j-f EREFOPJ), OF WEST VlP^GINIA. 

Mr. Speaker: If I had consulted my own wishes and inclinations 
I should have been silent during the present sad hour; but having 
been requested to join in the ceremonies of the occasion, with sad- 



LIFE AMI CHARACTER OF M1CHAF.L C. KERR. t; i 

ness of heart and trembling hand I lay my wreath upon his bier, 
humble though it be. 

I feel proud to be able to class myself as one of the earliest and 
warmest friends of the deceased; not only his friend, but adviser. For 
several years we served together in this House ; during that time I 
watched his career; each day he grew upon me; not only so, but he 
grew upon the country until he was called to fill yonder chair, now 
draped in mourning. He became the Speaker of the Forty-fourth 
Congress, filling, and filling worthily, the position held by such men 
as Muhlenberg, Clay, Stevenson, Polk, Winthrop, Linn Boyd, and 
Banks. 

Michael C. Kerr illustrated in his own person one of the excel- 
lences of our form of government, the possibility, right, and power 
of any of its citizens to fill its highest, most honorable, and most re- 
sponsible positions, provided he deserved them, deserved them by his 
ability, energy, and integrity. He was pre-eminently the architect of 
his own fortune. He had not the adventitious aid of family or for- 
tune; but unaidedand alonehe climbed the ladderof fame until he had 
almost reached its topmost round. It may be truthfully said of him 
as was said of Aristides and Cato, " that he advanced himself to great 
honor and dignity in the commonwealth by no other means than his 
own virtue and industry." The young men of our country have in 
him a bright exemplar to cheer them on in their lonely struggles for 
place and position, and I only hope that like him they may never 
swerve from the path of high honor and unyielding integrity. In all 
his congressional career he labored most assiduously for his country 
and the Constitution ; truly could he adopt the language that Plutarch 
applied to himself: "This service, I say, is not for myself ; it is for my 
country." Among all his colleagues on this floor I know no one who 
more fixedly and constantly made the Constitution his polar star. He 
kept his eye steadily upon it. When any question arose in our delib- 
erations upon which he was called to act, the first question he pro- 



52 ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD OX THE 

pounded to himself was, " Is this measure constitutional ?" If not, he 
opposed it. 

With that as his chart and compass he felt confident of guiding the 
great ship of state safely through all storms, however high the billows 
might rise or however black and angry the clouds might become. He 
had a living and abiding faith that the billows would subside, the 
clouds pass away, the stars again shine out brightly, the night pass 
away, and the sun of the morrow rise brightly upon the vessel and 
its noble crew. 

I never knew a man who had stronger convictions and clearer con- 
ceptions, and these convictions he followed most scrupulously to their 
logical results, without turning to the right or left or stopping to see 
the result. The sordid, selfish arts of the demagogue or political 
trickster he utterly loathed. He adopted as his guide the follow- 
ing language of Aristotle : "Popular governments in which the con- 
stitution and laws are supreme afford no place for demagogues. 
Where, however, the laws are not sovereign, demagogues spring up." 
O, that in this centennial period, this our hour of peril, these lines 
and this sentiment were emblazoned upon the dome of this Capitol, 
written in letters of living light over the Speaker's chair, upon every 
public building and private house throughout our broad, beloved, and 
distracted land ! I know of no public man of his day who more thor- 
oughly demonstrated in his public life the sentiment of William Pitt, 
the Great Commoner of England, when he said, " I will not go to 
court if I may not bring the constitution with me." 

As a debater he had few equals on this floor or elsewhere ; clear, 
concise, and logical, as a steady opponent of jobs, rings, subsidies, 
and partial legislation he yielded to no one. Who of all his col- 
leagues does not recall that clear, ringing voice of his in clarion 
tones denouncing what he deemed corrupt and pernicious legis- 
lation ? As a presiding officer, though emaciated and feeble physi- 
cally, he gave evidence of being equal to any who had preceded him, 



IJFE AND CHARACTER OK MICHAEL C. KERR. 53 

always commanding the high respect, confidence, and admiration of 
the whole House irrespective of party. 

He had the high purpose, the firm resolve, and dauntless courage 
of a statesman of the highest order. With him the blandishments of 
power had no influence ; he yielded neither to its behests nor was 
allured by its trappings. While he had the very highest respect for 
the voice of the people constitutionally expressed, he heeded not the 
frowns of the infuriated mob goaded on by designing demagogues. 
He never crooked " the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may 
follow fawning." 

His aims were unselfish, his hands were clean, his life was pure and 
full of the tenderest affection for a noble and loving wife and a fond 
and obedient son. 

But lie is no more. He has been called to his long home. His 
labors on earth are closed. His voice will no more be heard in these 
Halls. His last remains lie buried beneath the soil of his adopted 
State, Indiana. No more shall we meet his tall, manly form and be 
permitted to grasp his unsoiled hand. He will no more go in and out 
before us. But may we all meet him again in that better land, on 
that "great day for which all other days were made, for which earth 
sprang from chaos, man from earth, and God from eternity." 



^DDP^ESS of JAh. JCnott, of ft. 



ENIUCKV. 



It may be considered a work of supererogation on my part, Mr. 
Speaker, to offer a single remark in addition to what has already been 
so eloquently said by other gentlemen on the present melancholy 
occasion, yet there are certain circumstances which will perhaps excuse 
me, if indeed they do not render it peculiarly appropriate that I 
should beg the brief indulgence of the House at this time, not for 
the vain purpose of attempting to express my own private grief for 



54 ADDRESS OF MR. KNOTT ON THE 

the death of our lamented Speaker — for at the tomb of a loved and 
honored friend the anguish of genuine friendship can find no voice — 
but that I may contribute my assistance, feeble as it may be, in crys- 
tallizing in the history of the country to whose service he dedicated 
the best years of his life some of the evidences of his merits derived 
from long and intimate personal association. 

It was in the midst of one of the most refined and cultivated com- 
munities in the district I now have the honor to represent upon this 
floor that Mr. Kerr first stepped upon the arena of active manhood. 
It was at the beautiful little town of Bloomfield, in the State of 
Kentucky, that he laid the foundation of his subsequent career of 
usefulness and honor while engaged as a faithful, earnest, and efficient 
instructor of youth. There in the intervals of his arduous duties as 
a teacher, which others might have devoted to idleness and pleasure, 
he mastered the fundamental principles of jurisprudence and political 
philosophy with which in after life, both as a lawyer and a statesman, 
he showed himself so remarkably familiar. There his indefatigable 
energy, his indomitable will, his unwearying industry, and, above all, 
his immaculate integrity, are still held up for the emulation of the 
aspiring youth who, in the face of penury and misfortune, would 
achieve an honorable distinction among his fellow-men. There those 
striking traits of a manly character which distinguished him through 
life, and which have already been so happily portrayed by the elo- 
quent gentlemen who have preceded me, won for him the confidence, 
the respect, and the affections of a large circle of warm-hearted, gen- 
erous friends, who, sympathizing in all his laudable aspirations and 
proud of his well-earned success, delighted to do him honor when he 
had struggled far up the rugged steeps of a justly-merited fame. 

Of his early friends at Bloomfield he delighted to speak in terms 
of the most affectionate remembrance, and I have heard him fre- 
quently remark that the happiest, proudest moment of his life was 
when they welcomed him back in their midst after years of absence, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 55 

to .1 grand ovation to which they had invited him just after his last 
election to Congress. 

My own personal acquaintance with Mr. Kerr began in July, 1867, 
when I met him for the first time on the floor of this House, as a 
member of the Fortieth Congress. A variety of circumstances soon 
brought us into frequent, intimate, and confidential intercourse with 
each other, and afforded me the most favorable opportunities of 
becoming familiarly acquainted with one of the most admirable char- 
acters with which I have ever come in contact ; a character which 
perhaps but few have ever fully appreciated in all its excellence, 
because but few have studied it from the same stand-point and under 
similar circumstances to those I was so fortunate as to enjoy. 

The most remarkable trait in that character, indeed the key to Mr. 
Kerr's whole life, public and private, was his unswerving, unfalter- 
ing, inflexible fealty to Truth under all circumstances and upon all 
occasions whatever. In the light of that single fact, every act and 
utterance of his public and private career should be viewed. It was 
this that led him to act in everything upon the maxim of Aristotle, 
that incredulity is the source of all wisdom— to take nothing for 
granted, but to satisfy himself by actual investigation of the real foun- 
dation as well as the ultimate conclusion of every proposition upon 
whatever subject that might be submitted to his mind. Hence 
resulted those habits of indefatigable labor, careful analysis, patient 
research, profound meditation, and deliberate utterance, for which he 
was so distinguished. It was this same devotion to the truth as he 
understood it that gave him the reputation among some who had not 
made a careful analysis of his character, of being unduly obstinate 
in the maintenance of his own opinions. His was truly a firmness 
that would have led him to a martyr's stake; but it was a firmness 
resulting from a conviction of duty and not from any mere false pride 
of opinion. It was this same fealty to truth that made him the very 
impersonation of personal honor and official integrity. Slow, and at 



56 ADDRESS OF MR. KNOTT ON THE 

times apparently timid in arriving at his conclusions, reaching them 
usually after patient and laborious investigation, and ever impelled by 
an inexorable sense of duty, none of the blandishments of flattery, 
no allurement of place, or power, or fame, no threat of defeat or 
unpopularity, no influence of mere private friendship could swerve 
him a hair's breadth from the right as he understood it, or deter him 
from the honest, outspoken expression of his own fixed opinions. 
There was but one possible way to move him, and that was to con- 
vince him of his error, and when convinced no one was ever more 
ready to confess or retract his mistake. It was this same fidelity to 
truth which infused into his oratory that peculiar fervor and energy 
of expression which frequently characterized it, not only in stating his 
deliberately-conceived opinions, but when indulging, as he sometimes 
did, in flashes of fierce invective when his indignation was aroused 
by the detection of falsehood or hypocrisy; for whatever was false, or 
fraudulent, or in any wise deceptive, his innate love of truth led him 
to despise with an intensity almost beyond the reach of expression. 
And finally, sir, it was owing to his fealty to truth that some were 
led into the strangest of all possible misconceptions of his character. 
There were those who regarded him as a singularly cold, unfriendly 
man, while the truth was a truer, warmer, tenderer heart, or one more 
loyal to its friends, never beat in human bosom. He scorned, from 
the very depths of his soul, the arts of flattery and dissimulation, and 
had the manly courage, so rare, so difficult to find, to remind his 
friends plainly, candidly, and truthfully of their faults. 

But, sir, I will not abuse your patience by a further analysis of the 
character of our dead Speaker. It stands out amid those of his com- 
peers, a Doric column, symmetrical in its solidity, beautiful in the 
utter absence of all meretricious ornament, and immaculate in the 
material of which it was reared. Few like it illustrate the annals of 



IFE AND CHAKACTEK OF MICHAEL 



yiDDP^Ess of yviF^_ yANCE, of pmo. 

Mr. Speaker : In rising to-day to give utterance to my feelings 
of personal bereavement, I feel — as one does not often feel on occa- 
sions of this character — that the loss of one is the loss of all. In 
giving this feeble token of my grief that we no longer have Michael 
C". Kerr of Indiana in our midst, I but utter what every patriotic 
citizen of his State and our country must feel : that our grief is no 
common grief, our loss no common loss, and that it will be long 
ere the void made by the death of our lamented Speaker will again 
be filled by such a man as he. When a man by the resolute force of 
his own invincible character attains exalted station, and is charged 
with the performance of important public functions — and that, too, 
at a time when circumstances seem such that considerations of party 
fealty are likely to determine the choice in favor of those who have 
earned recognition by partisan services, rather than that the prize 
should be adjudged to unostentatious merit — his removal by the hand 
of death is a circumstance so unforamate as to arouse the sympa- 
thies of even the hardest of hearts. To be denied the light of his 
counsel and the encouragement of his voice is a deprivation of no 
ordinary magnitude ; a national calamity that all must deplore. 

Although my acquaintance with the late Speaker was formed dur- 
ing the latter years of his life, yet familiarity with his many excellent 
qualities depended not upon the length of time one was thrown in con- 
tact with him. To appreciate the manly, genial, and conciliatory 
turn of his mind, one has but to glance at his conduct during the 
organization of the present House ; to know his worth and truly appre- 
ciate the most exalted phases of his character, one should be of the 
number of those who originally had some other preference for the 
Speakership. But from whatever stand-point one studies him, whether 



5° ADDRESS OF MR. VANCE OX THE 

as a supporter or as an opponent, the honest observer must acknowl- 
edge the stability and rectitude of his character, the firmness of his 
purpose, and the geniality of his heart. The trying flame of physical 
suffering only seemed to bring forth more brilliantly the golden treas- 
ures of his judgment. With a rich and varied experience, such as 
seems essential for a truthful knowledge of human nature, he was 
placed in the Speaker's chair at a time when his public career was 
seemingly opening before him a wide field of usefulness. The sad 
story of his physical decline and untimely death is written in indeli- 
ble characters in the hearts of every one who during the last session 
saw the almost superhuman exertions he made to appear in the chair 
of the House and perform his trying duties — duties that had he been 
in ordinary health would have weighed upon him as a straw upon 
the arm of a giant. 

Who, were the power granted him, would willingly enter into the 
secret thoughts of the strong man, struck with mortal disease, con- 
scious of his infirmity, aware of its nature, and knowing only too well 
its inevitable end ? The evils of life tell all of us that there are call- 
ings among the occupations of men which bring those who assume 
their duties into contact with sickness and distress, to whom such 
sad stories are among the daily incidents of life. A cultivated mind, 
and the consciousness of ability to mitigate suffering and alleviate 
anxiety, may be some compensation for the strain to which human 
feeling is subjected ; but who, I again ask, not of those professions, 
would willingly enter into the secret thoughts of one conscious of his 
rapidly approaching end, and share with the sufferer the terrible dis- 
tress which must arise when he sees the dark, unknown future rap- 
idly drawing upon him, soon doomed to separate him from the pres- 
ent, with all its cares, all its responsibilities ? To one in robust health 
the thought even is replete with pain. How great, then, must have 
been the fortitude, the power of resisting suffering, and the ability to 
banish thought of self in our late Speaker during all those long, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 59 

weary days when, borne down by disease and racked with pain, lie 
still persisted in performing the duties of his office? Nothing but 
an abiding sense of the importance of the task devolved upon him, 
and a deep consciousness that it was better for him to persevere and 
die in performance of his duty, rather than shrink from its execu 
tion, kept him at his post at a time when all were conscious that he 
was wearing away his life. At a time and under circumstances when 
almost any other man would have dismissed thought of public cares 
from his mind and devoted attention to himself, Mr. Kerr knew no 
other course than that which inspired him to let all else go, and abide 
by the demands of that country to whose service he had already 
devoted many of the best years of his life. The result we all know. 
Many men have fallen martyrs on the field of battle. To Michael 
C. Kerr it was reserved to offer his life and his all on the altar of his 
country, unanimated by the clamor of contest or the shock of battle — 
a martyr to conviction— one who died for his country in giving her 
those services she stood so much in need of. 



^DDF^ESS OF JAF^. ^HILlTS, OF JAlSSOV t^. 

Mr. Speaker: The voice of Missouri ought not to be silent on an 
occasion like this. As a part of the Louisiana Territory acquired 
from France, Missouri was first under the pupilage of Governor Har- 
rison, of Indiana. The civil polity of her local institutions was thus 
impressed upon the very childhood of Missouri. Her brave and 
hardy yeomanry came with those of Kentucky as the pioneers who 
penetrated the wilds of the western bank of the Mississippi and 
hushed the shout of the red man, felled the forests, and blazed out 
the pathways for the coming legions of civilization. Allied by his- 
tory and tradition, recounting the perils, privations, and achieve- 



ADDRESS OF MR. PHILIPS ON THE 



ments of a common ancestry, when Indiana presented the name of 
her distinguished citizen for the Speakership of this Congress, Mis- 
souri had neither prejudice nor jealousy to overcome in yielding him 
her support. She has cause to mourn his loss, and lays claim to 
a share in the glory of his name and fame as a part of her rightful 
heritage. 

It is no purpose or province of mine to review his life. That office 
belongs to those who knew him best. Nor shall I offend his memory 
by fulsome eulogy. Nothing could have been more distasteful to him 
when living. " Paint me as I am," said Oliver Cromwell, while sit- 
ting to young Lely. "If you leave out the scars and wrinkles I will 
not pay you a shilling." Such would be the request of Mr. Kerr, 
could he now speak to us. 

He was always averse to display. He despised shams of all sorts. 
His character was real. Mere idealism and speculation found no 
place in a mind occupied and surcharged with the realities of 
actual life. Rugged in thought and severe in habit, the world 
regarded him as austere and cold. Drawn into that isolation often 
unavoidable to the professional man and close student, he was 
esteemed unsocial. 

He was eminently a man of convictions. He had no model. He 
investigated and thought for himself. He hung not in the midair of 
hesitancy or doubt, but always reached a conclusion. He grappled 
with his subject and mastered it. Hence his convictions were not 
visionary or momentary. They were of the conscience acting through 
the judgment, and were abiding. He never yielded a principle for 
mere expediency. He never abandoned the right for success. He 
did not believe with Shakespeare in applying "craft against vice;" 
but he believed rather with Hobbes, that craft is "crooked wisdom; 
a sign of pusillanimity." Mere policy in affairs of state he regarded 
as too often the abandonment of the field of justice and patriotism for 
a triumph empty and short-lived. He carried no concealed dagger, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 61 

and while he courted no unnecessary contests he shrank not from the 
open field and an equal sword. 

During the heated discussion had on this floor last session over the 
question of the surrender of Hallet Kilbourn to the District court, I 
met Speaker Kerr near the door to the left of his chair and said to 
him: "What do you think of the policy of sending Kilbourn to the 
court and leaving the responsibility of the judgment of the court with 
the republican party?" With nervous emphasis he instantly replied: 
"It will not do at all. This matter involves one of the important 
constitutional prerogatives of this House. To yield it would be to 
place ourselves in the just contempt of the country and to confess' 
our imbecility." 

We are told by naturalists that birds of paradise fly swiftest against 
the wind. While the contrary winds serve to display the brightness 
of their plumage, in drifting behind them their gorgeous train of 
feathers, they gather strength as their flight is entangled with the 
gale. So with some men, the stormy day is better for their mental 
qualities than the calm. Mr. Kerr's congressional career was amid 
scenes of almost revolutionary excitement ; when political virtue and 
constitutional principles were subjected to unexampled tests. It 
was a time that tried men's souls, and how few withstood the test ! 
It was the development of Mr. Kerr. It aroused the latent fires 
of his soul, and with undaunted courage he stood in the forefront 
of the battle for constitutional liberty which he conceived to be 
imperiled. On the ramparts of the Constitution he stood the sleep- 
less, intrepid sentinel. Like the chivalric Henry V on the field of 
Agincourt, charging the chafing, desperate Duke of Alengon, he led 
the serried little band on this side of the House with a skill and cour- 
age that extorted applause from even those who were impaled by his 
unyielding lance. 

Mr. Speaker, the true heroes of this world are not always recog- 
nized. The devotion of the deluded fakirs as they mangle their 



0; ADDRESS OF MR. PHILIPS ON THE 

bodies and practice all manner of austerities, the reckless daring of 
the fireman, the animal courage of the soldier, fail not to win the 
applause of the common herd of men. But there is a moral heroism 
of man in adhering to duty and the right, in breasting the storm of 
popular opinion under circumstances of intimidation and temptation, 
of which the world takes little note, but is as grand and glorious as 
martyrdom itself. In these days of moral cowardice, of mock joust- 
ings and tourney-loving masses of political hacks ; of the men " of 
mint and anise and cumin;" of empiricism and social and politica' 
shoddyism, when counterfeit pretension passes for the pure coin o; 
solid merit and brazen impudence challenges public confidence, and 
admiration even, such men as Michael C. Kerr, who lifted against 
these tawdry trappings of a vicious age the blazing buckler of a more 
heroic epoch, are a nation's glory and the people's hope. 

He was not what the world commonly calls a genius. But if genius 
be defined the faculty of appreciation, he has claims to the coveted 
gift. He certainly appreciated "the eternal fitness of things." He 
spoke without ornamentation, directly to the pending issue, with a 
depth of earnestness and stress of emphasis that convinced if it did 
not charm. He seems to have adopted the motto of Somers, "Pro- 
desse quam conspici" He never dropped the iron links of argument 
for the gossamer threads of rhetoric. If he failed in the glamour of 
an exuberant fancy, or seldom touched the deeper chords of impas- 
sioned eloquence, he at times glowed like the furnace in which the 
richer material is separated from the dross and better fitted for the 
uses of the world. If he was imperious in opinion, he was not an 
unreasonable dogmatist. If he was austere in manner and reserved 
in intercourse, he was no demagogue nor fawning sycophant. 
Idiosyncrasies and prejudices he may have had, but he never 
betrayed a trust, deceived or deserted a friend. 

Mr. Kerr was a man of inexorable honesty. His active public 
life lay through a period of excessive vice, of shameless profligacy, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICIIAEL C. KF.RR. 63 

and unblushing corruption; yet perhaps no man living or dead kept 
his official garments purer. No stain is on them. No unclean thing 
ever touched his ermine. No serpent's trail crossed his path. No 
cloud of dishonor shadows his grave. 

When amid the season just passed, of intense party rancor, there 
were found those who dared attempt to asperse the unsullied name 
of this exalted citizen, the instinctive chivalry of the whole Amer- 
ican people rebelled against the foul imputation. It was during this 
saddest hour of the night of his life I saw him most and learned the 
stuff he was made of. Prior to this his friends saw the danger to his 
life by his continued labor in the public service; but he seemed to 
have adopted the sentiment of the Roman patriot, Necesse ut earn non 
nt vivam. When his integrity was assailed his determination was 
fixed to die with his harness on. 

What a spectacle that was ! Disease had marked him as a victim 
and had him in its toils. The angel of death had kissed his wan 
cheeks and left the hectic flush there. The voice, one utterance of 
which was once a command to silence and attention to listening 
Congresses and multitudes, was broken and gone. His palsied 
limbs refused longer to bear the burden of even his emaciated body. 
He was almost a disembodied spirit. There was left to him his 
indomitable will, which seemed to refuse submission to the dominion 
of death. Sensible of his danger, and sensitive of his honor — the 
best_ legacy he had to bequeath to wife and child — yet conscious of 
his utter helplessness and dependence, he felt the breath of political 
intrigue and slander amid the very ice of death gathering on his 
face. 

"How living and how deep the wound" of such assault! 

Like a giant pricked and thrust by the barbed arrows of pigmies, 
he writhed, not afraid to die, but craving only to live to see the hour 
ofhis vindication. That hour came even though the messenger of 
death waited without. 



64 ADDRESS OF MR. PHILIPS ON THE 

With my good friend, the honorable member from Kentucky, [Mr. 
Blackburn,] I called at his sick chamber to express my sympathy 
and offer my congratulations. It was our last interview. His eyes, 
in which the fires of genius yet gleamed as if inextinguishable, 
spoke the emotions of a heart too full for utterance. The long, 
earnest pressure of the hand once so warm, but now almost cold 
with the touch of death, I shall never forget. 

We, young and ardent, filled to overflowing with indignation at the 
wretch who had attempted to swear away the good name of this man, 
as busily as the two men of Belial swore away the life of Naboth, 
suggested that he be prosecuted and punished for perjury. With 
voice broken with intervals of difficult respiration he said, "O, no; 
that poor creature is unworthy of my hate. To his conscience and 
God we'll leave him. I am in no condition for further excitement. 
I would not disturb the good feeling and harmony in the House 
over my unanimous vindication by pursuing the matter into the 
courts." 

What an illustration that was of his staid judgment, his lofty spirit, 
and undisturbed equipoise! On his tomb could be fitly written, as a 
tribute to the quality of his mind, Mens aequo, in arduis. 

His star of life sunk ere yet it had reached its full promise, 
Snatched all too early from thit august fame 
That on the serene heights of silvered age 
Waited with laureled hands. 

But though life was sweet and luring, yet he so died that nothing 
in his life "became him like the leaving it." 

In the old State of Virginia, the home and resting-place of his 
great political mentor, Thomas Jefferson, under the ceaseless vigils 
of wife and son and the benisons of the whole Republic, he passed 
to the land beyond the sea. 



[FE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 65 



^DDI^ESS OF yWR. pARR, OF JNDIANA. 

Mr. Speaker : Standing within the saddening shadows which have 
fallen upon this floor from the broad wings of the angel of death, 
who has so recently and so unwelcomely hovered over this stately 
Hall, and amid the flood of silent sorrows which pour in upon us on 
this mournful occasion, it is with great depression of spirits that I 
essay a discharge of the solemn duty I, in common with you all, owe 
the distinguished dead whose last funeral rites we perform to-day ; 
but coming into this Hall as I do to fill the seat upon this floor made 
vacant by his untimely death, and from the large constituency which 
have so often loved to honor him while living and who revere his 
memory when dead, it were eminently proper that I, in my own be- 
half and for them, should add my assent to and express our approval 
of the many eloquent but truthful eulogies that have been placed, 
like fragrant immortelles, upon the casket of his glorious memory. 

For the first time in the history of our Government has the organi- 
zation of the House of Representatives been disturbed and its mem- 
bers saddened by the death of its presiding officer. Though often, 
far too often, the cold hand of that ever-unwelcome visitor has been 
laid upon the prominent of its honored members, for the first time 
has he stalked silently and remorselessly across this floor, ascended 
to that exalted chair, and stricken with his chilling and killing blow 
the head of this great national council ; and this fact should give a 
more serious current to our train of thought on this unusual occasion. 

Michael C Kerr was a native of Titusville, Pennsylvania, where 
he was born on the 15th of March, 1827. His parents were people in 
moderate circumstances, and of that old, sturdy Pennsylvania stock 
whose children may be found scattered in every section of the coun- 
try, giving life and vitality to every department of human enterprise. 



9 K 



00 ADDRESS OF MR. CARR ON THE 

He was chiefly self-educated, but studied at the Erie Academy, whence 
he was graduated at the age of eighteen. During his attendance at 
the academy, Mr. Kerr became attached to Miss Coover, and imme- 
diately after his graduation married her. By teaching school Mr. 
Kerr earned the means to defray his expenses at the Louisville 
University, where he received the degree of bachelor of laws in 1851. 
In 1852 he removed to New Albany, Indiana, and began the prac- 
tice of law. He early developed those traits of character which have 
since made him an enduring name among his countrymen. He was 
elected attorney of the city of his adoption, and in the performance 
of the duties intrusted to him he most arduously devoted himself and 
attracted public attention to his abilities. At the end of one year's 
service he was elected prosecuting attorney for the county of Floyd, 
serving in that capacity but a single year, when, in 1856, he was 
nominated as a candidate for the legislature, and in the October fol- 
lowing was elected. It was during this year that attention was first 
attracted to his powers as an orator. In 1S62 he was elected reporter 
of the supreme court of Indiana, and while occupying the position 
he prepared five volumes of reports, which are regarded as the best 
of the entire series issued from that court. 

The effectiveness of Mr. Kerr on the hustings pointed to him as 
the leader of his party in the second congressional district of his 
adopted State, and on the 12th of August, 1864, the district congres- 
sional convention at Jeffersonville nominated him as the candidate of 
his party to represent the district in the Thirty-ninth Congress, and at 
the October election following he was elected by a large majority. 
Upon taking his seat in Congress he was assigned to two committees 
of the House — Private Land-Claims and of Accounts — serving with 
faithfulness to the interests of the public. Again, in 1866, he was re- 
turned as a member of the Fortieth Congress, and served on the Com- 
mittees of Elections and Railways and Canals. In 1868 his con- 
stituents returned him as a member of the Forty-first Congress, in 



which he served as a member of the Civil Service Committee, and it 
was during this session that he first assumed a prominence among his 
colleagues. In 1870 the people of the second district declared him 
their choice, and he was elected by the usual majority. Upon taking 
his seat in the Forty-second Congress he was placed upon the Com- 
mittee of Ways and Means. During the two following, as in the 
preceding two years, he was frequently heard upon the floor of Con- 
gress in the advocacy of sound and statesmanlike views upon the sub- 
jects of the currency and taxation, and in opposition to every species 
of monopoly. 

In 1872 Mr. Kerr refused to enter the canvass for the nomination 
in his district. But at the meeting of the State convention he con- 
sented to accept the nomination for Congressman at large, but was 
defeated by Hon. Godlove S. Orth, by a majority of only 126 votes 
in the entire vote of the State; but he was only two years out of the 
House, coming in again by a great majority in 1875, when, as all the 
country remembers, he was chosen to preside over the deliberations 
of the body of which he was conspicuously and confessedly one of 
the ablest members. 

Michael Crawford Kerr was no ordinary man, but one formed 
by his Creator to fill an important mission in the stirring events of his 
stewardship here, and to this end he was endowed with clear concep- 
tions, sound judgment, and a will to dare and do that which his con- 
victions conceived to be right. But these convictions were never 
hastily nor recklessly formed. In the investigation of a subject brought 
before him for action, calmness and deliberation were always invoked, 
and when thus a conclusion was reached no sophistry, no mercenary 
motives, no sinister influences could suffice to move or sway him; but 
there, like the coast-rock beating backward the surging waves of 
ocean, he stood, fixed and immovable ; and if overpowered by supe- 
rior forces, like the sturdy oak whose head is bowed by the hurtling 
tempest, when the storm had passed he stood erect again, conscious 



b» ADDRESS OF MR. CARR ON THE 

of the correctness of his views. In that warfare which is ever being 
waged between the principles of right on the one hand and the errors 
of wrong on the other, he always stood the unyielding and aggressive 
champion of honor and rectitude, armed with a falchion whose very 
brightness dazzled and subdued. Nor did he wait to strike until the 
command for the reserve to advance was passed to the rear of the 
grand army of noble intellects; but, spurred on by high impulses and 
nerved by exalted instincts, he stood in the foremost ranks with his 
armor ever on and his trenchant blade drawn from the scabbard. 
Though weak in physical powers, 

* * " His mind 
Was formed to combat with his kind. 
Strong in his will and of a mood 
Which 'gainst the world in war had stood 
And perished in the foremost rank 
With joy. 

It is not strange, therefore, that such a nature scorned to be led, but 
was proud to lead where honor and duty blazed the way. It was this 
which restrained him from yielding to the mistaken fancies or erring 
clamor of the masses. He was not 

* * * That soul 
Which creeps and winds beneath the mob's control; 
That courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod, 
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god. 

When public sentiment was right he was foremost among its advo- 
cates, but when wrong, like another Socrates, he braced himself man- 
fully against the erring flood. In this he was truly a great man. The 
world hath need of all such noble natures which God hath blessed it 
with, and the loss of his self-sacrificing patriotism, his exalted pre- 
cepts, and his noble example is irreparable. When he fell, the ranks 
of the gallant few with whom he fought and kept the faith lost a 
power they could illy spare, and where he fell there was left a 
vacancy in the ranks which all our prayers and tears for the regretted 
dead can never fill. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 69 

To this strong characteristic must be added the no less commenda- 
ble traits of character which everywhere and at all times stamped him 
as a man pre-eminently honest and pure. Descended from an ancient 
Highland Scottish clan whose name he bore, he seemed to have in- 
herited largely that sturdy, honest, and incorruptible nature which so 
distinguished the Wallace, the Douglass, the Bruce, and the Roderick 
Dhu of those better days. This attribute so inwrapped him like a robe 
as to shield him from the advances of the mercenary and corrupt. So 
strong, so marked was this phase of character that in a long and active 
public life, in which the bitter animosities of rivals and political ad- 
versaries were often excited, but once was an assault ever made upon 
it, and then the shafts aimed by envy and propelled by base designs 
fell harmless at his feet, covering his accusers with confusion and 
shame. The attempt was as harmless as the casting of a toy-dart at 
the Colossus of Rhodes, and as futile as an attempt to darken the 
heavens with a miniature cloud of dust. The investigation, like the 
testing ordeal for the purer metals, left him the brighter for the fric- 
tion and the more universally appreciated for the seal of national 
approval which it stamped upon his immortal memory. To lose a 
public man with two such rare and desirable traits of character in times 
like these, when the fibers of our free institutions seem ready to burst 
asunder from the increasing strain produced by the degenerating 
tendencies of the age, adds a patriotic poignancy to our grief and an 
intensified depth to the shadows of a nation's sorrows, which shall be 
lifted only when the sunlight of better days shall dispel the dangers 
which brood over us like the menacing hand of a Nemesis. 

Bringing into his public life and places of trust such Spartan vir- 
tues, it is not surprising that he so rapidly ascended from the lowest to 
the highest plane of prominence, and commanded at all times renewed 
and increasing confidence, admiration, and preferment, until, caught 
up in the ready arms of an approving nation, he was seated in that 
exalted chair, once cccupied by America's greatest and most dis- 



70 ADDRESS OF MR. CARR ON THE 

tinguished statesmen, Trumbull, Macon, Dayton, Clay, and Polk — a 
place second only to the highest honor and most precious gift in the 
power of this Republic to bestow. Here, while in that proud position, 
presiding over the councils of a great people, shaping the legislation 
of a mighty nation, in the flood-tide of his prosperity and usefulness, 
it pleased the mighty God who holds alike the destinies of nations and 
individuals in his omnipotent hand to remove him from the field of 
his labor and place his ashes in that sacred urn, among that constel- 
lation of statesmen whose names are inscribed in characters of never- 
fading light upon the tablets of our history. It was a sad bereave- 
ment to his afflicted friend?; it was a national misfortune, but we 
bow in meek submission to the decrees of that superior and divine 
wisdom which "doeth all things well." 

It is not for me to extol the labors of the deceased while a member 
and officer of this House. That task were more fitly done and has 
been more ably performed by those of his eloquent colleagues who 
have preceded me, and whose encomiums I shall bear with me to the 
bosom of his immediate constituency with a just pride and satisfac- 
tion. To be assured that throughout all his congressional career, and 
much of it embracing the darkest hours of this Republic, he occupied 
the high grounds of statesmanship, and never for once descended to 
the level of the mere politician; that his utterances were ever for the 
needs of the whole country and were never circumscribed by the de- 
mands of mere party ; that his efforts were ever for the great good of 
the many and never to their exclusion, in the interests of the few, 
confirms the conceptions formed of him at home, and makes universal 
the picture engraven upon the hearts of his own people. 

While the deceased stood thus distinguished from the masses of men 
in his public life, in his private virtues he was pre-eminently a man — 
the highest and best type of man. While many of the most cele- 
brated characters of history have had their glories dimmed with reflec- 
tions from dark spots upon their private lives, Mr. Kerr was wholly 



free from any great private fault whose presence detracted from the 
public esteem in which he was held. He was temperate and sober, 
honest and upright, frugal and charitable, generous and just, con- 
scientious and a Christian, a warm friend, a constant husband, and 
an affectionate father. He had his likes and dislikes, but they were 
distributed by reason and controlled by causes. He had his partial- 
ities and his prejudices, but they were never wholly without founda- 
tion. He had his peculiarities, but they never approached distaste- 
ful eccentricities, and with all the details of character the aggregated 
whole rendered him a desirable neighbor, a useful citizen, and an 
esteemed man. 

We have inadvertently pronounced him dead. True, we have placed 
his mortal remains in the tomb of his fathers and his ashes are min- 
gling with the dust from which they arose, but he is not dead. Such 
men never die. There has been a change, yet it has been one in 
which but the grossness of earth-life has been swept away, leaving 
only the intellectual, the spiritual, and therefore the higher and purer 
life, to commune with us, teach us, and lead us onward and upward. 
He lives in his work and example ; nor will they die wholly until in 
the dim distance of future time the obliterating waves of oblivion 
shall submerge all that has been and now is, and the dark funeral pall 
shall be thrown over the glories of the past and greatness of the 
present. 

As a proper closing of these solemn ceremonies, I now offer the 
following resolutions, and move their adoption : 

Resolved, That the sad announcement of the death of Michael 
C. Kerr, late member from the State of Indiana, and Speaker of this 
House, is received by us in the deepest sorrow and profoundest re- 
gret, and that in his untimely decease the House of Representatives 
of the United States has lost an impartial, competent, and noble pre- 
siding officer, a faithful and patriotic member. 

Resolved, That in testimony of our respect for the memory of the 



72 ADDRESS OF MR. CARR. 

deceased Speaker, his chair be draped in mourning during the unfin- 
ished term of the Forty-fourth Congress, and as a further evidence 
of our continuing esteem for the dead, the officers and members of 
this House will wear the usual badge of mourning for the space of 
thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Senate be informed of the death of the late 
Speaker by forwarding to that body a copy of these resolutions, and 
that the Clerk transmit a copy of the same to the afflicted family of 
the illustrious dead. 

Resolved, That, as a further tribute of respect to the departed offi- 
cer, this House do now adjourn. 

The question being taken on the resolutions, they were unanimously 
adopted; and accordingly (at three o'clock and forty-five minutes p. 
m.) the House adjourned. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



Tuesday, February 27, 1877. 

Mr. McDonald, (at eleven o'clock and four minutes a. m.) I 
desire to call up the resolutions of the House of Representatives in 
honor of the late Speaker, Michael C. Kerr, for present considera- 
tion. I ask that the resolutions be read. 

The chief clerk read the resolutions of the House of Representa- 
tives, as follows : 

Resolved, That the sad announcement of the death of Michael C. 
Kerr, late member from the State of Indiana and Speaker of this 
House, is received by us in the deepest sorrow and profoundest re- 
gret; and that in his untimely decease the House of Representatives 
of the United States has lost an impartial, competent, and noble pre- 
siding officer, a faithful and patriotic member. 

Resolved, That in testimony of our respect for the memory of the 
deceased Speaker, his chair be draped in mourning during the unfin- 
ished term of the Forty-fourth Congress, and, as a further evidence of 
our continuing esteem for the dead, the officers and members of this 
House will wear the usual badge of mourning for the space of thirty 
days. 

Resolved, That the Senate be informed of the death of the late 
Speaker by forwarding to that body a copy of these resolutions, and 
that the Clerk transmit a copy of the same to the afflicted family of 
the illustrious dead. 



VDDRESS OF MR. M'DONALD ON THE 



yiDDE^ESS OF fhf\. ^VlcpoNALD, OF JnDIANA. 

Mr. President: It has not occurred before in our history that 
upon the records of the same Congress have been placed resolutions 
of respect to the memories of the presiding officers of the two houses. 
Just before the opening of the first session of the present Congress, 
and while many of its members were on their way to attend its sit- 
tings, the country was startled by the news of the death of the Vice- 
President of the United States and President of the Senate, and 
before they had all reached their homes at the close of the session, 
another national loss had been sustained in the death of the Speaker 
of the House of Representatives. 

In uniting with the House in doing honor to the memory of its 
late chief officer, those of us who had the good fortune to know him 
well can bear witness to the great loss our country sustained, taken, 
as he was, in the meridian of life and in the midst of his labors, and 
also of that great bereavement suffered by his family and his friends; 
for while by his laborious and faithful discharge of the public duties 
intrusted to him and his unbending devotion to principle he had 
made for himself a position in the front rank of the public men of his 
country, his kind and gentle nature had enshrined him the idol of the 
social and domestic circle in which he moved, and when death re- 
moved him from it a void was left that can never be filled. 

Michael C. Kerr was a native of the State of Pennsylvania, and 
was born at Titusville, in that State, March 15, 1827, but about the 
time he had attained his majority he left his native State and cast 
his fortunes in the then great West, and after completing his legal 
studies, by graduating in the law department of the Louisville Uni- 



versity, began the practice of his profession in the city of New Albany, 
in the State of Indiana, in 1852, and from that time until his death 
he was a beloved and honored citizen of that State and city. He 
was soon called into public life, first in the line of his profession, and 
gave promise of attaining to its highest honors, but in a short time 
was elected to represent the county of Floyd in the legislature of the 
State, and made his first appearance in political life in January, 1857, 
when he took his seat in that body. My acquaintance was formed 
with him during that session, and it grew into a friendship that in- 
creased in warmth and strength to the day of his death. His studi- 
ous habits and close attention to the duties of his position marked 
him at that early day as one of the rising young men of the State. 

In the fall of 1864 he was elected a member of the Thirty-ninth 
Congress from his district and continued to serve in that body, with 
the exception of the Forty-third Congress, until the close of his life, 
having been elected its Speaker at the beginning of the present Con- 
gress. It was in this service that he became known to the people of 
the whole country and established for himself a national reputation, 
and it was in the laborious discharge of the duties which devolved 
upon him as one of the active and leading members of that body that 
a constitution not naturally strong was impaired and the seeds of dis- 
ease planted which brought him to an untimely grave. 

Mr. Kerr was naturally a student, and his mind was well stored 
with solid and substantial facts, especially relating to the science of 
government and political economy; but after he had turned his at- 
tention to politics he studied with great care the political history of 
his country that he might better understand the frame-work and 
structure of the Government, and especially those elementary prin- 
ciples which underlie that structure. In his public life as an actor 
he always, and under all circumstances, asserted his convictions. 
Few men possessed a moral courage equal to him and none superior, 
and no apprehensions of the loss of popular favor could induce him 



to stifle his conviction or compromise his principles. Indeed it may- 
well be said that his expressed political principles were at all times 
but the reflex of his convictions. Not naturally a fluent speaker, yet 
by study and practice he became a ready and strong debater, and at 
times his earnestness, almost unconsciously to himself, grew into elo- 
quence; but his constant aim was to convince the judgment of his 
hearers and never to influence their action by appeals to their pas- 
sions or their prejudices. 

But his highest qualities were exhibited in that sublime courage 
with which he combated the steady approach of death, and the calm- 
ness with which he looked forward to the fatal hour. Anxious to 
live, and yet with a painful consciousness that his days were num- 
bered and that no mortal hand could pluck out the fatal arrow that 
Death had planted in his system, he seemed to rise above all fear and 
to move forward on the path of duty with a courage and fortitude 
that never for one moment faltered. He seemed to be constantly 
saying to himself, " I should not fear, nor yet should I wish for my 
last day to come; and until it does come I must not be idle nor 
waste my time in vain regrets." And so, Mr. President, he lived and 
so he died — died working on to the close of his life. 

His was the true courage, " not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, 
but the firm resolve of virtue and of reason." He filled every station 
to which he was called, public and private, with honor. He honored 
the city in which he lived, and his name is there cherished as a house- 
hold word. He honored the district which had conferred upon him 
its highest favors, and his memory will be long held in reverence by 
his people. He honored the State of his adoption, and it will pre- 
serve his name upon the roll of its most illustrious citizens. He hon- 
ored the high place to which he was called by the representatives of 
the whole people, and for that we this day place his name "in me- 
moriam" upon the records of the Congress of the nation, there to 
remain for all time; but we cannot restore to his family and friends 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 77 

the light and life that went out from them when he was called from 
their midst. 

Mr. President, I send to the desk resolutions for adoption by the 
Senate. I will state that the resolution in regard to adjournment is 
not now to be put. 



ytDDF^ESS OF yVlR. jVALLACE, OP PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mr. President: It is fitting that we of Pennsylvania should second 
these resolutions and bring our tribute to the worth and the char- 
acter of one of the sons of her soil. Michael C. Kerr was a type 
of the race from which he sprang. The physical form and mental 
characteristics of the man both proclaimed that he was one of those 
who trace their lineage and their ancestry to the hills of Scotland. 
The valleys and hills of Central, Southern, and Western Pennsylva- 
nia were largely peopled by them. The habits of life and the modes 
of thought of that race have become deeply graven upon whole 
masses of our people, and have in turn impressed themselves upon 
every section of the Republic. Wherever this people have planted 
themselves within our borders, there are found prosperous settlements, 
happy homes, and peaceful communities. Indomitable energy, an 
iron will, economical habits, purity of character, a hatred of shams 
and devotion to truth, invariably marked the best specimens of the 
race, and nature was only true to herself when she stamped these 
qualities indelibly upon the late Speaker of the House of Represent- 
atives. A blameless life, intelligent and honest performance of high 
public duties, the respect of all who knew him, and the warm attach- 
ments of his party to his fortunes as a safe and prudent leader, marked 
his public career. As I learned to know him, no trait in his character 
was so clearly defined as his hatred to all hypocrisy, his earnest devo- 
tion to truth. He seemed to recognize this as the chief part of every 
virtue. The political maxim " that those who know not how to 



7» ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 

dissemble know not how to rule," found no believer in him. The 
saying of the ancient Greek, " it was for slaves to lie and for freemen 
to speak truth," was much nearer his political creed and practice. 
Vigorous in speech, logical in argument, industrious in research, and 
courteous in debate, it is not strange that he should come to be recog- 
nized as a leader in the Forty-first, Forty-second, and Forty-fourth 
Congresses, nor is it surprising that with this purity of character and 
party record he should be chosen to the high place in which death 
found him. 

Standing at his open grave we acquire a profound sense of the fleet- 
ing character of earthly honors and of the brittleness of the thread that 
suspends us over the dread unknown. To-day it is life, with its 
glittering trifles, its busy cares, its choicest gifts; to-morrow, death, 
the grave, eternity. 

To us who stand where he stood — dedicated to the public service — 
the record of this man's life and death is an example, clear, well 
defined, and luminous. 

It is the proud record of an honest public servant. 



^DDRESS OP ,/ViF^ }V FLIGHT, OF JoWA. 

Mr. President: In this country the highest type of American man- 
hood and in the very forefront of the nobility of mankind may be 
found, not infrequently, those who in early professional life leave 
their homes in New England and other States and identify them- 
selves with the ever alive, adventurous, and stirring people of the 
great and growing West. The young lawyer in this grand new 
arena, with prairies boundless, landscapes unsurpassed, all the ex- 
periences of an extensive practice, the friction, conflict, and yet esprit 
de corps found in court terms and court-room, circuit-court life, cir- 
cuit-court travel, circuit-court acquaintance, and by his early partici- 
pation in political and all the contests of a frontier and new life — such 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 79 

a person, I say, finds in all education and instruction, and soon be- 
comes the highest type of the western and American statesman, law- 
yer, and citizen. For in all these things there are inspiring and ele- 
vating influences. The experiences may in many instances be hard 
and unusually severe, but the young disciple of the law thereby passes 
"through the rough brake," and thus he is the more likely to "come 
out tried and true." He may be poor, but his poverty is his stimu- 
lant; he may have trials, but these are for his purification; he meets 
with reverses, but such bufferings make him even more a power in 
his new home; he meets with strong opposition, and this but makes 
his will-power still more a power; and thus each day he gives renewed 
evidence of that true worth, that genuine virtue which tells upon the 
destinies of senates, the commons, the people, and the nation, and 
which oft is 

Sooner found in lowly sheds, 

With smoky rafters, 
Than in tapestried halls and 

Court of princes. 

To this class belonged Michael C. Kerr, the true lawyer, the ear- 
nest prosecutor of the pleas of the State, the careful legislator, the 
painstaking reporter of the decisions of the highest tribunal of his 
adopted State, the modest and dignified Representative in the Con- 
gress of the nation, the impartial and able presiding officer of that 
body where he was for years among its leaders; the man of iron will, 
uncorruptible integrity, a noble specimen of the true American states- 
man. He represented, and well, the State which' I am but too proud 
to acknowledge as that of my birth, the land of my early struggles 
with poverty, the State which by its kindly legislation afforded to 
myself as well as others the means for an education which might 
otherwise have been unattainable, the State to which I shall ever 
refer with the gratitude of a child, and to his memory, as the chosen 
of the people, I would assist at this time in paying some humble 
tribute. 



60 ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 

It was said of the deceased that he seemed to have little special 
fitness for public life; and yet that he not only never attempted the 
arts of the demagogue, but loathed them in his inmost soul; that he 
loved his profession, the law, and sought its honors; that his opinions 
in committee and elsewhere were those of the jurist and not of the 
politician, and that so strong was his will and so absolute were his 
convictions that it was impossible for him to trim or play the time- 
server. Now, Mr. President, if such a man had not special fitness, 
entitling him to the highest places in public life, then my ideas of 
the true statesman are sadly at fault. The arts of the demagogue 
are not those of the statesman, nor do they ever fit a man for that 
work which leads to the upbuilding of humanity and the highest in- 
terest of our common country. In proportion as the man in public 
life loathes such arts, he becomes safe and wise in legislation and en- 
titled to confidence in places of the highest trust. And so firmly im- 
pressed am I with the great conservative influence of the true lawyer, 
so often have I been led to bear witness to the worth and value of the 
able and thoughtful jurist in matters of public concern, and so highly 
do I prize the man who stands by his convictions, not to be turned 
aside by the motives influencing the trimmer and time-server, that I 
accept such men as having admirable fitness for public life, a fitness 
which leads almost necessarily to true greatness, a fitness which places 
its possessor in the front rank of the profession and the highest states- 
manship. 

The life and character of Michael C. Kerr bear witness that he 
had this fitness and belonged to this class. In proportion as we shall 
have such men we shall have judicious legislation and added security 
to our country and its institutions. We need to cast out all dema- 
gogues, all trimmers and time-servers, all acting for policy, all merely 
expediency legislators, all letting out or taking in sail to catch the 
popular breeze, all trembling, uneasy hands with fingers upon the pub- 
lic pulse, all whose courage shall be measured by the stock market or 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 6 1 

the persistence of a lobby, and install in their places those who know 
their duty and do it, who, defying all opposition, move unflinchingly 
to the fulfillment of every trust, and who, when the end is reached, 
the result attained, feel that they have stood by the cause of their 
country, their God, and truth. 

When the true man dies the world should indeed mourn. For such 
the Senate, the nation, and the friends of good government mourn 
to-day. He succeeded in life because those who knew him had con- 
fidence in his integrity and uprightness. He won distinction because 
he industriously studied our institutions and fearlessly and courage- 
ously maintained his views upon all questions demanding his atten- 
tion. He took the highest rank because he marched in a straight line 
to his conclusions, ever exhibiting judicial fairness and the most un- 
questioned candor. He made friends because he had great good- 
ness of heart, because to those who knew him best he was warm- 
hearted, kindly, and affectionate. He was the peer of the noblest 
of those around him because with good natural ability he had energy 
indomitable, perseverance unflinching, convictions the most abiding, 
and ever sought to make honest inquiry for truth. 

One so panoplied and so endowed could not but succeed. The 
world owes such men victory, and whether the debt is paid grudg- 
ingly or otherwise, it will be extorted, and it were idle to attempt to 
withhold it. Wife, children, friends, parties, the nation, should ever 
be proud of one so gifted and rejoice in his triumphs. That we may- 
be led to cherish his virtues, give encouragement to all to emulate his 
example, and enrich our own hearts by the memory of his many and 
varied attainments and excellences, it is meet that we should pause 
in our pressing duties and look, as we now do, upon his new-made 
grave, cast thereon our garlands of good-will, esteem, affection, love, 
and renew our assurance of profound sympathy and condolence for 
the members of the stricken household who this day most deeply 
mourn his loss. 



U:SS (.IF MR. liAYARD ON THE 



_^DDF^ESS OP yViF^. J3aYAP,D, OF pELAWARE. 

Mr. President : I never knew a man to whom indiscriminate 
eulogy would have been more distasteful and repulsive than the 
straightforward, single-minded gentleman whose death I now rise to 
deplore. Power will ever have its parasites, who cling to it, not to 
aid it, but to suck from it their discreditable sustenance. \Vhat the 
courtier is to the monarchy the demagogue is to popular govern- 

Michael C. Kerr could never have been either. 

He would not have flattered Neptune for his trident, 
Or Jove for his power to thunder. 

He would have told the truth as he knew it, despite the frowns of 
a king, and with equal fidelity would he tell it to the people, even 
when threatening and excited by misapprehension and urged to 
harm by "false prophets." Mr. Kerr was one of the quiet workers 
of Congress, who, remote from publiG view, in those places where the 
real labors of legislation are performed did his duty in steady, pains- 
taking conscientiousness. 

The incense of popular applause was not needed to urge him to 
his work. But, whether in the full gaze of the public or in the seclu- 
sion of the committee-room, he was faithfully occupied in the per- 
formance of his duty. 

As ever in the great Taskmaster's eye. 

Thus his fame burned with a steady luster; and as his reputation 
rose its base broadened upon the substantial qualities of honesty, 
fidelity, and sterling intellectual capacities. Although a vigorous 
and impressive debater, his gifts were not showy but solid, and he 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 83 



forced his delicate physique unsparingly to make these gifts most use- 
ful to his fellow-men. 

Sure the eternal Master found 
His single talent well employed. 

I served here in Congress with Mr. Kerr during years of anxious 
and critical interest. We were members of a weak minority, and 
during our association never entered upon a contest in these halls of 
legislation without plainly discerning at the end of the struggle 
defeat awaiting us. This habitual defeat, while it did not diminish 
the ardor of Mr. Kerr in pursuit of duty, yet wore upon his physical 
health, and it may be said without exaggeration that his labors in 
behalf of the public caused his premature death. 

One feature of the pulmonary disease under which Mr. Kerr 
sank is a hopefulness on the part of the sufferer deluding him into a 
belief in his recovery, even to the last faint effort of expiring nature. 
In such a condition of health he went into the high place of Speaker 
of the House of Representatives of the United States with the hand 
of death resting upon him, unknown to him, but unhappily visible 
to those who surrounded him. His fine mental powers shone undi- 
minished, and the man within was high-toned and true-hearted as 
ever. 

I well remember calling upon him at his lodgings in this city, as 
he lay faint and gasping for breath upon his couch, and when that 
fell spirit of slander, "which loves a shining mark," had aimed its 
relentless and poisoned arrows at his reputation, I took his wasted 
hand in mine and uttered a few words in reference to the shameless 
and futile assault, dictated by the unscrupulousness of partisan 
malignity. His answer was a sad smile as his honest eyes looked 
into mine, and a pressure of the hand responded to the unquestion- 
ing confidence I felt and had expressed that these dishonest missiles 
of political assault would shiver themselves against the granite base 
of integrity upon which his life was built. He lived to see his 



»4 ADDRESS OF MR. BOOTH ON THE 

slanderers promptly rebuked by the unanimous report of the com- 
mittee appointed by the House to investigate the charges, condemn- 
ing his accusers and exonerating him from even the suspicion of 
misconduct. This report was sustained by the unanimous vote of 
the House and the voice of honest men of all parties in every part 
of the Republic. The closer the scrutiny the more the moral worth 
of the man became apparent. His death was a loss to his country; 
his example should be cherished, and the memory of his life and 
character be embalmed in the affection and respect of the American 
people. 



y^DDRESS OF yW.R. JSOOTH, OF pALIFORNIA. 

Mr. President: The conditions of American life change so 
rapidly that representative types of American character are not likely 
to be reproduced. Franklin, Samuel Adams, Washington, Jackson, 
Clay, Lincoln, will have no historical parallels. The race of western 
pioneers will soon be as extinct as the Puritans, and will have no 
successor. 

.Modern life, so abounding in the use of tools, machinery, and 
intellectual aids, is not favorable to the formation of individuality of 
character, and native individuality must be strong to survive the 
repressive influence of custom and conventionalism. The character 
of Michael C. Kerr was so strongly marked that a stranger meet- 
ing him on the street would have received a distinct impression of 
the man. 

His public career needs little reference from me. It was not my 

fortune to know him personally until the last year of his life 

when the shadow of the dark valley was already upon him. How 
he struggled with pain and disease; how his iron will supplied the 
place of physical strength, and forced his tired body to bear the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MICHAEL C. KERR. 85 

burdens of his great office, until bis breath grew too short for utter- 
ance and his feet too weary to bear their load, is known to us all. 

The fortitude, endurance, courage, patience which he evinced in 
this struggle were typical of his character. He knew that death 
would conquer, but he fought for every inch of time. He had never 
counted the odds in any contest, and he would not even when the 
grim monster was his antagonist. Life with him was so earnest, that 
even sickness brought no respite from labor and responsibility. 

Almost the whole of his manhood was spent in public office, and 
he died poor in worldly goods, as most men do who devote them- 
selves to the public sen ice. He was careful in all the details of his 
duties. He never spared himself, and nothing was so minute as to 
escape his conscientious attention ; nothing which pertained to duty 
was insignificant in his eyes. 

His purposes were so intense, that I think his life was serious 
even to sadness. Pursuing his own line of thought, amusements 
and society had little attraction for him. He was fond of general 
literature, but disciplined his taste even in that to make it tributary 
to the main purpose of his life. He was slow in forming his 
opinions, but once formed they were a part of his life. No one can 
penetrate the inner life of another and realize the long preparation, 
the conflict of doubt, the struggle of intellect, the throes of thought 
which precede the opinion so positive in utterrance, or the de< ision 
that seems instant as lightning when occasion comes. 

In the discharge of his public duties Mr. Kerr was never moved 
by the pleadings of immediate special interests, however powerful or 
plausible, to neglect or betray the interests of the people from whose 
loins he sprang, whose burdens he respected. He would not yield 
to the solicitings of friendship, the blandishments of flattery, or the 
temptations of interest. He was almost destitute of imagination, 
and had little enthusiasm, but his intense earnestness gave to his 
utterances a fervor that had the semblance of both. He never 



66 ADDRESS OF MR. MORTON ON THE 

sought the easy way of doing, but instinctively took hold of the 
heavy end. Life with him meant work, not dalliance; duty, not 
pleasure. 

With his opinions on the great questions that culminated in and 
grew out of our civil war, I differed toto cixlo. They are differences 
I gladly forget at his grave. Cannot we all now allow these differ- 
ences to be buried in the grave of the past ? Can we not regard the 
conflict through which we have passed as an inevitable event of 
history which no statesmanship could avert, and respect its awful 
loss of life as a common sorrow, a sacrifice which fate had decreed 
to liberty and union ? 

If we cannot; if strife must perpetuate itself and passion harden 
into hatred, the sun of our national existence which rose upon so fair 
a morn will be hidden by clouds and go down in tempests. 

In times of great political excitement like these, the man who dies 
in public station falls like the soldier in the heat of battle; when the 
lines close, comrades press forward, and the fight goes on. In the 
distant home something passes from the life of love which was most 
dear to it, and which nothing that is or shall be can .ever replace. 
We miss the voice that was strong in debate; others, the tones that 
were tender with love. A manly presence has gone from our midst; 
the footsteps that gladdened a home have gone down to the grave. 

The tribute of respect which we pay seems formal from oft repeti- 
tion; there is a sorrow which is speechless, a grief which is tearless. 

Thus through life every heart must bear its own sorrow, its own 
grief, its own precious memory, sanctuaried from the eye of curiosity, 
where the voice of sympathy cannot reach, and the touch of healing 
cannot come. 



ytDDF^ESS OF fA-R. ^MORTON, OP JnDIANA. 

Mr. President: I have known Mr. Kerr since 1861. Our per- 
sonal relations were never intimate. We were never thrown together 



in any way. I met him from time to time and have been familiar 
with his political history and reputation. 

We lived in a State somewhat distinguished of late years for the 
bitterness of its political contests. While he and I were on different 
sides, yet our personal relations were always good, and I now take 
pleasure in bearing testimony to his memory. 

The character of Mr. Kerr for integrity has never been impeached. 
Some charges that were recently made against him since he was 
Speaker of the House of Representatives were not believed at all by 
his political antagonists. I can say that the republicans of Indiana 
did not believe these charges. I did not, and it may be said that Mr. 
KERk's character for integrity has never been impeached or suspected. 
I take pleasure in bearing testimony to his high character as an hon- 
est man. Mr. Kfrr has always been regarded as occupying a higher 
plane of politics than most politicians. He has been regarded as a 
man who was devoted to principle and who pursued principles to 
their logical results. Intellectually he was very able; a man of fine 
ability. He was a student. He has always been regarded as labo- 
rious. Especially was he a student of political economy. He was 
much better acquainted with the principles of political economy than 
most men in public life. He has made them his study for years. 
He was always regarded as a student, with a fine knowledge of gen- 
eral literature and of history, but especially a student in all those 
branches of knowledge relating to politics and the Constitution of his 
country. His name will be remembered with pride and with affection 
in Indiana. He was one of her most highly favored and gifted sons, 
and it gives me satisfaction to bear testimony to his patriotism. I 
believe he was a devout lover of his country and went for that which 
he believed was for the best. I have always given him credit for his 
integrity, for his patriotism, and for love of his country, and the 
strongest testimony which I can bear to the character of Mr. Kerr 
is to say that he was regarded by men of all parties in Indiana as an 



OS ADDRESS OF MR. MORTON. 

honest man, an able man, a patriotic man, and that his death was 
mourned by all his neighbors and by all who knew him, without dis- 
tinction of party. 

In some respects he was a remarkable man. His ability was not 
of the common order, and, as was said by the Senator from Delaware, 
[Mr. Bayard,] it was more solid than it was showy, with a great 
power of analysis and with great capacity for labor. But few public 
men have died who have left behind them a clearer or a better record 
than Michael C. Kerr, and he died possessing the esteem of good 
men without distinction of party. 

The Presiding Officer. The Clerk will now report the resolu- 
tions offered by the Senator from Indiana, [Mr. McDonald.] 

The Chief Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the Senate has received with profound sensibility 
the sad announcement of the death of Hon. Michael C. Kerr, late 
a member of the House of Representatives from the State of Indiana, 
and Speaker of that House. 

Resolved, That as a mark of the respect entertained by the mem- 
bers of the Senate for the high character, pure patriotism, and emi- 
nent public services of the late Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives, they will wear the usual badge of rhourning for thirty days. 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 



